Goal setting is the foundation to self motivation and is applicable at all times.

Consequently, our awareness of today’s economy gives us a new perspective on goal setting.

Sales people must have a far more realistic approach and be steadfast in their determination and discipline.

Primarily, you need to identify the desires and dreams you want to become a reality in 2012 and beyond. Begin by taking some time to write or draw them out as clearly as possible. This is the first, and most important step of goal setting to fulfill those desires and dreams.

Did you know that only about 3% – 5% of the population write down or create pictures of their goals???

About 35% – 37% will say things like: I don’t know how; I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I want but it’s just in my head; My work goals are set by the boss. Not sure what I want in my personal life; I might fail to reach it; What if I succeed? Can I cope with the changes that will bring?

More than 60% will say: ‘I don’t really have the time”. They’ve been too busy with the outside world, to give any thought to the inside world – where success, motivation and the heart of the most important person in the world resides.

The same applies to New Year resolutions—over 60%—will not see their resolutions through to reality, giving up within the first 14 to 21 days.

Will you be one of those statistics or do you seriously want to make your dream a reality?

Without exception, the tiny minority of people who do regularly write down their goals agree that the power in the goal-setting process is getting those bright ideas out of their heads – in writing out the words or creating the pictures.

Every time we read a story about a sports star or a top achiever in any field, they talk about their clear, well-thought-out and specific goals. Can you think of any exceptions??

Once your top priority desires and dreams have been identified, you must determine if you are willing to pay the price to make one, two or all of them a reality.

It is not about money when you choose to pay the price to make a dream a reality. It’s about being realistic. Your willingness to pay the price with hard work and determination must be identified as you set goals.

The price you have to pay may come in many forms. Your commitment may be in the form of money; change in habits; extra demand on your time and efforts; or additional education. Your goal may affect your family and other relationship(s). It may even impinge on your hobbies, sports or other activities. Are you willing to pay that price?

These are the demands you must identify with goal setting because if you are not willing to pay the price, you will not realize any of your desires or dreams. If you are not ready, it is best you avoid any goal setting and forego that New Year’s resolution.

It is imperative to be truly honest with yourself and understand the consequences associated with making your dreams a reality. Proceed only when you are willing to pay the price and ultimately, achieve your goals.

Finally, take action. Support your action with a very strong dose of “Discipline to do what you said you would do even when you do not want to do it.”

The Goal Log, the Goal Chart and the Monthly Monitor Chart, along with many other tools for Goal Setting is available in my book “Disciplined for Life, You Are the Author of Your Future”, and available at www.disciplinedforlife.com

This is a good practice and keeps us focus on our sales targets.

So why not apply those same goal setting and monitoring strategies on our personal lives so that we too can stay focused on our dreams and end up where we want to be.

Today, in most organizations, management devotes enormous energy to setting work objectives and conducting performance reviews for individual employees.

Corporations go through this time-consuming and costly exercise to ensure the most favorable results for their firm.

In professions such as sales, considerable time is spent questioning, listening, discovering and understanding the needs of clients in order to provide a recommended solution or action plan.

In contrast, how much time and energy do you expend discovering your own needs and desires, and then consciously setting objectives, developing action plans with measurable performance standards, and finally reviewing your own performance?

By engaging in such an exercise, you will be doing something about your life. You will be going to work on yourself, for yourself. This is where the real behavior has to start.

Allow me to refer you to “Disciplined for Life, You are the Author of Your Future”. The exercises in Discipline 5, 6 and 7 will help you to discover your dreams, organize them into a sense of priority and help you to determine if you are prepared to pay the price to make those dreams a reality.

For the purpose of this article, and your professional sales career, I will share Discipline 8 with you. In Discipline 8 you will learn how to set goals and create a goal logbook. If you would like a copy of a goal logbook, just ask me

The process, once you learn how to use it for yourself, is the same for setting your sales and career goals. Unlike organizations who want us to do it for them, I want you to do it for you.

When you believe in your dreams, nothing but self-imposed limitations will stop you from achieving them. Your first step is to define your dreams as goals. A goal is a specific and measurable result that must be achieved within specified time, resource and cost constraints. A goal is an end, a result, and not just a task to be performed. It describes the condition we want to achieve. Our goals guide our actions and help us plan at work and at home. When we focus on our goals, long- and short-range, our present is determined by our future…not our past.

Visualize your first goal. Clearly understand your destination. Now the steps you take will all be in the right direction. You can examine each part of your life in the context of what really matters to you. Your goals are an extension of your values.

Goal setting is the process you use to select, define and put into operation the expectations that you have for yourself. It all starts with you!

Keeping New Year Resolutions, and following through on goals, requires that same determination, self-discipline and effort to be successful. First let’s understand the meaning of each of these words.

• Determination is the power or habit of deciding definitely and firmly with a direction to a certain end result.

• Discipline is a commitment to yourself, to do what you have to do even when you don’t want to do it.

• Effort is amount of the total work done to reach a particular end result.

• Success is the progressive realization of worthwhile goals.

Goals are resolutions – that is what motivates us. Resolutions, like goals, are our desires. Without goals or resolutions, there is no reason to act, no motivation to take daily actions or go the extra mile.

Key factors in making a successful resolution are firstly, a person’s confidence that he or she can make a change in behavior, and secondly, their commitment (discipline) to making that change.

Behavior is the manner in which you conduct yourself. It is the way you behave, the way you act, function or react. Appropriate behavior drives opportunities as you will learn to target your efforts. Opportunities come from setting goals, written S.M.A.R.T. Goals.

What do you want out of life, career or out of your business? Who could determine this for you and who can make it happen? What are the daily behaviors that you must apply to live the life of your dreams or to make your career or business a success?

It is those daily behaviors, and when you implement them, that will make a big difference in your level of success. Once you identify these behaviors and times and stick to them, watch your time management skills and results improve dramatically.

Behaviour, like attitude, starts with you. What you do for a living is a choice you made. But there is a reason you made that choice and that choice goes beyond making money. Sure money has something to do with it, but it is not the money that gets you out of bed in the morning – it is what you want to do with the money that keeps you motivated.

It is the realization of your dreams, and dreams can be realized when you take the time to organize, plan and put your plan into action.

You have to decide what you want to do, plan it out, and discipline yourself to make it happen, from the inside out, not the outside in. I’ve seen people overcome stuttering, go from poverty to riches, from having no self-confidence to great confidence in themselves. How?

They determined what they wanted, created a plan, complete with action steps, and then monitored and measured their progress. They very literally disciplined themselves to make it happen.”

One of the greatest learning’s I discovered working in sales was how we were always setting sales targets and objectives, and being measured against them. This is a good practice and keeps us focus on our sales targets. So why not apply those same goal setting and monitoring strategies on our personal lives so that we too can stay focused on our dreams and end up where we want to be.

Today, in most organizations, management devotes enormous energy to setting work objectives and conducting performance reviews for individual employees. Corporations go through this time-consuming and costly exercise to ensure the most favorable results for their firm.

In professions such as sales, considerable time is spent questioning, listening, discovering and understanding the needs of clients in order to provide a recommended solution or action plan.

In contrast, how much time and energy do you expend discovering your own needs and desires, and then consciously setting objectives, developing action plans with measurable performance standards, and finally reviewing your own performance? By engaging in such an exercise, you will be doing something about your life. You will be going to work on yourself, for yourself. This is where the real behavior has to start.

I refer you to “Online for Life: The 12 Disciplines for Living Your Dreams”. The exercises in Discipline 5, 6, 7 and 8 will help you to discover your dreams, organize them into a sense of priority and help you to determine if you are prepared to pay the price (effort) to make those dreams a reality.

When you believe in your resolutions (dreams), nothing but self-imposed limitations will stop you from achieving them. Your first step is to define your resolutions as goals. A goal is a specific and measurable result that must be achieved within specified time, resource and cost constraints.

A goal is an end, a result, and not just a task to be performed. It describes the condition we want to achieve. Our goals guide our actions and help us plan at work and at home. When we focus on our goals (resolutions), our present is determined by our future…not our past. Keep in mind that your resolutions (goals) are an extension of your values.

Finally, you need to measure and monitor your progress on an ongoing basis. Without some form of monitoring you will not be able to recognize your progress and reward yourself accordingly. This is where Discipline 11 comes in with the Monthly Monitor Chart. It helps keep you on track and makes discipline a habit by recognizing appropriate behavior. Remember, any behavior that gets recognized or rewarded, gets repeated.

If you don’t already have the book Disciplined For Life, You Are the Author of Your Future, I suggest you buy a copy. Visit www.DisciplinedForLife.com and order your personalized copy today.

After you exert this type of discipline long enough, you will establish a routine and create a new habit. Behavioral studies suggest that if you do something every day for 21 days, it becomes a habit. Be action oriented for the next 30 days and you will master procrastination.

“Discipline is the key. Discipline is respecting a commitment to yourself and doing what you have to do, even when you don’t want to do it.”
Bob Urichuck

Avoid procrastination. Procrastination is the process of habitually putting things off. It is tempting to make excuses: “I don’t have the time”, “I think they said they were going to be in meetings all day, so I didn’t call”, “This could take forever; I’ll do it when I have some spare time.”

Procrastination can cause you to miss deadlines, leading to lost opportunities and income, lower productivity and wasted time. It will lower your motivation, heighten your stress and generate frustration and anger. Is this the way you want to live your life?

Take control of your life now! Reverse the procrastination habit by being as clever about completing things as you have been about putting them off. Don’t expect to find time to achieve your goals. The only way to get time is to make time. Start by committing to a do-it-now mentality.

A do-it-now attitude makes you a self-starter — a person who can recognize a need and take appropriate action without waiting to be told. As a self-starter, you will avoid the pressure, frustration, and anxiety that come from having others tell you what and how to do things.

You exercise your creativity in solving problems and doing work. As a result, you are more productive. You take maximum advantage of every opportunity and your sense of timing sharpens. You seldom miss something you want due to tardiness. Your services are singled out and preferred above others.

This type of do-it-now attitude will also help you overcome your resistance to dealing with unpleasant tasks. Don’t delay your gratification by delaying the unpleasant tasks. By tackling them first, you get them over with and can get on with the more pleasant things in life.

Here are seven daily action-oriented steps to eliminate procrastination:

1. Be aware and recognize when and why you are procrastinating.
2. Make a decision – do you want to continue to procrastinate or do you want to replace this ineffective habit with an effective habit, like taking action? Make the decision. It is you, the decision maker, who will make it work.
3. Determine your most productive time of the day and dedicate it to “ME” time. “ME” time is for you to do whatever you have to do that will bring you closer to achieving your goals. It may be as simple as visualizing the accomplishment of your goals. The point is to dedicate at least one hour of your most productive time of day to the most important person in the world.
4. Once you have set your goals and have prioritized the actions, take your annual goals and break them down into months, weeks and days. Do the same with each day’s activities. See Discipline # 11 in my book, Disciplined For Life. This week I’m giving out a free soft copy of the Monthly Monitor Chart*. This document will help you monitor yourself on a daily basis for the next 30 days.

   The first two letters of goal are go. Now is the time to get going.

5. End each day by writing a prioritized to-do list for the next day. At the end of each week and month do the same for the next week and month. Get organized. Use a daily planner. You will be better organized if you write down everything.
6. Clear your mind of clutter. Solve problems while they are small. Whatever you do, do it once to the best of your ability, and move on. Question all tasks to make sure they are worthwhile. Do the worst or hardest jobs first. You will notice that your lists are completed faster.
7. Be decisive and remove time wasters from your activities. When evening comes and your next day’s to-do list is written, celebrate. Action that gets rewarded gets repeated.

An action-oriented person is proactive. When you are proactive, you have initiative. You can see a need, figure out how to best satisfy it, determine the appropriate time to take the right action, and proceed. When you are proactive, you lead. When you lead, you take control of yourself and get what you want out of life.

Use the Monthly Monitor Chart to be consciously action-oriented for the next 30 days and you will eliminate procrastination forever! It also works for keeping your New Year resolutions.

*Visit www.DisciplinedForLife.com to purchase your copy of the book and get additional Seasonal bonuses, including free softcopies of the Monthly Monitor chart and much more!

—
Bob Urichuck is a Canadian author of two best-selling books, entitled: Disciplined for Life, You Are the Author of Your Future and Up Your Bottom Line, featuring the Velocity Selling System.

Using Dubai and Singapore as his International hubs, Bob has been recognized as an International Sales Expert and is published in the book Sales Gurus Speak Out. Bob has been ranked #7 of the world’s top 30 Sales Gurus and recognized as a Platinum Speaker for Meeting Professionals International (MPI) and as the Consummate Speaker of the year by Sharing Ideas magazine. Bob is also the Founding President of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS) Ottawa and is a Certified Sales Professional (CSP)

Visit www.BobU.com to download your complimentary White Paper – The New Economy of Buyers. Why Traditional and Consultative Selling Methods No Longer Work.

Please contact Author for Permission to reprint © All Rights Reserved

1. Goal setting focuses your efforts and improves your direction in life.

2. Goal setting encourages you to set priorities and become more organized.

3. Goal setting turns your wishful thinking into reality.

4. Goal setting points out your successes as you achieve them, motivating you toward further success.

5. Goal setting improves your self-esteem.

6. Goal setting makes you responsible for your own life. It defines your own value system.

7. Goal setting makes you aware of your strengths and allows you to overcome obstacles and solve problems.

8. Goal setting points out your weaknesses. You can begin setting new goals to improve in those areas and to turn them into strengths.

Record keeping is important. Writing down your goals and action plans represents a commitment. Otherwise your dreams are merely wishful thinking. You can reread and visualize written goals. They are credible and legitimate. They move you forward. When your goals are written, you have begun to act. Inertia disappears. You will immediately sense accomplishment.

How should you phrase your goals? Goals must be S.M.A.R.T.—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Traceable to a Timetable. Let’s look at each of these elements in detail.

1. Goals must be specific. “Happiness” or “success” is too vague. Ask yourself: What exactly do I want to do, to be or to have? For example, let’s say you are getting too close to weighing 200 pounds and you want to reduce to 185 pounds within the next six months. You could write: In order to be healthier and more energetic, I will lose 14 pounds within the next six months starting today, and I will maintain a weight of 185 pounds from this point forward.

2. Is your goal measurable? How will you know you obtained your goal?

3. Is your goal attainable? Give yourself a chance to succeed. Take little steps and succeed. Success breeds success.

4. Is it relevant? Would the attainment of the goal be worthwhile for you? Before you can answer this question, you need to know what kind of life you want.

5. Is there a way of tracking your performance on a timetable? How do you know you are getting closer to your goal? Select dates when you will measure your progress against the milestones in your plan. You will either reaffirm that you are on track or make adjustments.

Consider the following as you set each goal:

• Is this goal really mine? Am I doing this for me or somebody else? If you are doing it for somebody else, you are not living a life of your choosing.

• Is it morally right and fair?

• Are my short-range goals consistent with my long-range goals? Keep in mind where you want to be 10 to 20 years from now.

• Can I commit to completing the project? If not, don’t set yourself up for failure and disappointment. Save the goal for a time in your life when you can commit to making the effort.

• Can I visualize myself reaching this goal? If you can’t see it, it won’t happen. Henry Ford said it best, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re absolutely right.”

One of the greatest lessons I discovered while working in sales was how we are always setting sales targets and objectives, and being measured against them. This is a good practice and keeps us focused on our sales targets. Why not apply those same goal setting and monitoring strategies in our personal lives so we can stay focused on our dreams and get what we want out of life.

Today, in most organizations, management devotes enormous energy to setting work objectives and to conducting performance reviews for individual employees. Corporations go through this time-consuming and costly exercise to ensure the most favorable results for their firm.

In professions such as sales, considerable time is spent questioning, listening, discovering, and understanding the needs of buyers in order to provide a recommended solution or action plan.

In contrast, how much time and energy do you expend to discover your own needs and desires; and then, consciously set objectives, develop action plans with measurable performance standards, and finally review your own performance?

By engaging in such an exercise, you will be doing something about your life. You will be working on yourself, for yourself. This is the point at which real behavior begins.

Allow me to refer you to “Disciplined for Life, You are the Author of Your Future”. The exercises in Discipline 5, 6 and 7 will help you discover your dreams, prioritize them, and determine if you are prepared to pay the price to make those dreams a reality.

For the purpose of this article What do you want out of Life?, and for your professional sales career, I will share Discipline 5 with you.

When I was twenty-two years old, I took a sick day from work. I was truly upset about how my life was going nowhere. I sat down at the dining room table and asked myself a very important question: What do I want out of life?

As I sat there thinking, I picked up a pencil and began to write down my thoughts on a pad of paper. I wrote down every thought that came to mind, no matter how ridiculous or impossible it might have been. I just kept writing and writing. Within twenty-four hours I had filled the entire pad of paper with my thoughts, dreams, and life desires. I no longer felt ill. I felt great.
I had a sense of direction.

The next morning, just before I got to work, I completed a list of all my life desires. It was a wonderful feeling holding that list of dreams for my future, and knowing “this is all that I want out of life.” I reviewed that list and had it handy for the following six months until I lost it. Eighteen years later I found the list as we were moving from our first dream home to our new dream home. What do you think was going through my mind as I reviewed that list?

It was incredible how many of the things I had written down all those years ago had became a reality. I hadn’t realized some of them but they remained on my list. The secret is that a dream will remain a dream unless you write it down. Once the dream is written down, it is crystallized and increases the chances of it becoming a reality.

You too can experience that same awareness by completing the following exercises. These exercises will become the basis for the rest of your life. Strive to come up with the most complete and descriptive list possible.

Start with your List of Dreams. Set a timeframe in which you will write down all of your dreams, desires and expectations of life. I gave myself twenty-four hours—a day of my life. Find a comfortable place where you will not be disturbed. You may want to play some inspirational or relaxing music to help you along. Have some extra paper and pencils with you.

List your dreams—write down every possible and crazy dream that comes to mind. In order for this exercise to be effective you must accept that nothing is impossible. There are no barriers, obstacles or excuses why something can’t happen. The objective is to write down every thought or desire that comes to your mind, no matter how silly, impossible or crazy it is. This is
not a test; there are no wrong answers.

Write down everything you’d love to have, to do or to be. What type of career do you want, with what sort of employer and team workers? Where do you want to travel? Do you want to fly or sail around the world, or live in a castle on the Rhine River? Do you want to be physically and mentally fit, be a superstar, or a salesperson? Would you like to earn a quarter-million dollars a year?

You may want to be married, live on a farm, have a large family, stay home and raise the family, be a volunteer worker, a recognized person in your community, a teacher, a musician, or a poet. It doesn’t matter; write down whatever your heart desires. Just keep writing. Everything is possible.

Invest time in yourself and write every thought that comes into your mind within your allocated time frame. Pretend that if it is not written down, it will never happen. Sleep on it and write any thoughts that come to mind during the night. Wake up and do the same. Then stop and say, “This is all that I want out of life.”

This is just the beginning but if you don’t write it down, it is guaranteed not to happen. Invest in yourself, make the time, and have fun!

Your objective is to write all of your dreams and desires for the next six months; for the next year; five years; and for life. Write, write, write and keep writing. Identify everything you want to have, to be or to do at some point in your life. Remember, there are no wrong answers and this list is for your reference only. It doesn’t have to be neat or organized in any way. Just write every thought that comes to mind. Sleep on it and add more the next day if you like. Keep in mind that there are no barriers and that nothing is impossible. Go ahead, do it now!

I had created a system over the years to help people to get what they want in life. Click here to get it now!

Determine your most productive time of the day and dedicate it to I time. I time is for you to do whatever you have to do that will bring you closer to achieving your goals. It may be as simple as visualizing the accomplishment of your goals or doing what you have to do just for you. The point is to dedicate the most productive time to the most important person in the world.

You have already set your goals and action plans; and have prioritized the actions. Take your annual goals and break them down into months, weeks, and finally days. Prepare in the same way for each day’s activities. Separate the large tasks into small, manageable pieces. Try to accomplish some of these smaller tasks each day. Before long, you will have accomplished a large task.

I recommend you end each day by writing a prioritized “to-do” list for the next day. Similarly, at the end of each week and each month, prepare a list for the following week and month. Plainly speaking, get organized. Learn to utilize a daily planner. You will be better organized if you write everything in your planner.

Another piece of advice, clear your mind of clutter. Solve all problems while they are small. Whatever you do, do it only once and to the best of your ability. Then, move on. Question all tasks to make sure they are worthwhile. Do the most unfavorable or hardest jobs first.

Be decisive and remove time wasters, such as interruptions, from all of your activities. Remember to take care of yourself by exercising, by watching your diet, and by maintaining a balance in your life. When evening arrives and your next day’s “to-do” list is written, then it is time to celebrate. Action that gets rewarded gets repeated. Follow these steps for 30 days and you will be transformed into an action-oriented, do-it-now person.

An action-oriented person is proactive. When you are proactive, you have initiative. You are able to see a need, to figure out how to best satisfy that need, to determine the appropriate time to take the right action, and to proceed. When you are proactive, you lead. When you lead, you take control of yourself and get the things you want out of life.

Try using the visualization technique to help yourself become action oriented. When you set your goals, you picture something that you want to have, to be or to do. Everything we have or do is preceded by an image in our mind. Visualization is seeing the end result. It is a form of mental rehearsal. Through the use of imagination, what you see is what you will get.

You must have a clear vision of your goals. There is a difference between ‘dreaming about having something in the future’ and ‘visualizing having it in the future.’ The power of believing makes all the difference. Visualizing implies a structured and disciplined view of what you are trying to accomplish. Through visualization, you picture yourself already in possession of your goal. By visualizing, you look at your goal from many different viewpoints. By examining your goal from all of the viewpoints, you see the situation clearly and can act on those aspects that will result in the greatest payback.

Go put your creed into your deed.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Make this a daily discipline. Visualize in order to actualize your goals. Forget all your inhibitions. See things as you want them to be, not as they are. Take time to sit back, close your eyes, and see yourself accomplishing your goal. You are watching a movie based on your personal success. Focus your attention on the results. See yourself at that moment. Feel the emotions. See the colors and the details, and hear the sounds.

If you form a clear and detailed picture of your future, the ways and means of getting there will be revealed to you. Keep focusing on what you want, not on how you will do it. The laws of nature will take over. The more you visualize the more resources you will attract. Your vision will act as a magnet. It will attract people, events and circumstances to it like a flame. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And when you’re having a difficult moment during the day, take the time to visualize the accomplishment of your goal. It will help you to refocus and to relax, and the issue of the moment will matter less. The major incident of today will probably be insignificant in the future. Don’t trip over molehills.

Try visualizing right now. Project yourself six months into the future. Select one of your short-range goals. Now get comfortable and close your eyes. See yourself accomplishing your goal. You are now successfully there. You made it; you’re living and breathing it. Use your imagination. See all the details, hear the sounds, feel the emotions, and celebrate. Visualize this for the next five minutes. Focus on the success.

I recommend that you get into the habit of doing this daily. Your enthusiasm concerning your vision will not only keep you motivated, it will get others excited about your dream too.

Just as thoughts can control feelings and feelings control behavior, the reverse is also true. If you change your behavior, you can change your feelings and ultimately your thoughts. It is not how you feel that determines how you act; it is how you act that determines how you feel. For example, if you pull your shoulders back, lift your head high, force yourself to smile and greet others cheerfully, you will find your mood changing.

The same process applies to self-talk. Feed your mind negative thoughts and it will produce negative actions. Feed your mind positive, confident information and your mind will react in kind. You cannot completely control the circumstances around you, but you can control what you say to yourself and how you think.

These techniques, all easy to do, are the daily steps that will lead you to success. All success breeds success. There will be obstacles along the way, and when they get in your way, be ready for them. You must persist. You will get things done and you will meet your objectives and reach your goals. Keep in mind that often when we are ready to quit, success lies just around the corner. Don’t ever relinquish taking action. Make your dreams come true!

If this is true, you must appreciate that sales revenue is the life line to your bottom line. Without buyers, there are no sales. Without sales, there are no revenues. The world revolves around sales, but more importantly, it now needs to revolve around buyers. Buyers are everywhere. What are you doing to help them buy?

The economy brought on a shift from selling during the boom times to attracting, engaging and empowering the new economy of buyers to buy.

Traditional and consultative sales methods no longer work. The sales cycle is longer than need be and the margins are dropping.

Buyers have been educated by sales people regarding all imaginable sales techniques. Unfortunately, salespeople don’t even realize they have lost control.

Sales people also need to change the way they are selling. The traditional dog-and-pony show, or feature and benefit dump will no longer work.

Clients, in today’s new economy, are looking for salespeople who bring them value. They want sales people who take the time to truly understand a client’s business and needs.

Clients appreciate salespeople who ask pertinent questions and listen intently, at the same time as demonstrating genuine concern for the client instead of themselves. Clients respect salespeople who are in it for the long term relationship and not simply for the money.

To succeed in the new economy of buyers, you need to do the opposite of selling. You need to attract, engage and empower buyers to buy.

“Keep doing what you have always done and you will get what you have always gotten.”

Most strategic planning emphasizes a target to increase sales and to up the bottom line. Sales skill sets must keep pace with the new economy of buyers in this high-tech, global society.

This is probably one reason why sales training is so prevalent on the Internet, at public seminars, and including in-house customized programs.

Another reason is sales training offers Management and individual sales professionals a high return on investment. For example, where else could you invest $1 with a realistic expectation of a $10 or more return in revenue?

If you, as a Corporate Executive, entrepreneur or professional salesperson are considering sales training, ensure it is a “buyer focused” sales training system supporting today‘s new economy of buyers.

Once you understand how buyers buy and how they control the sales process, you will want to change how you conduct your sales. Buyers follow a system, and salespeople must do the same. You must integrate a selling system that attracts, engages, and empowers the buyer to buy, not one that sells to the buyer.

A buyer focused selling system will maximize time and provide measurable results. You will enable buyer attraction, engagement, and qualification. Once the prospect is qualified, you will have the control to empower the buyer to buy, increase the velocity of your selling cycle, increase your margins and revenues, and ultimately, up your bottom line.

It is crucial to your overall success to begin with a strong foundation that will adequately support the productive behaviours within the Selling System.

A brand new positive and proactive attitude will certainly attract more buyers.
Changing your ineffective behaviours or habits into defined daily disciplines and efficient habits will provide you with more focused targeting. The result will be a better return on time invested (R.O.T.I.).

A buyer focused selling system requires organizations to be committed to doing what is “right” and demonstrating the appropriate behaviours on an ongoing basis. This includes tracking and analyzing behaviours to increase call-to-close ratios, or if necessary, turning away business. It also means being ethical and acting with integrity even when it’s easy or tempting not to.

Buyer Focused Sales training in today’s new economy will contribute more to your bottom line than any other activity.

All sales professionals, entrepreneurs or Corporate Executives must remember that sales revenue is the life line to up your bottom line. Without buyers, there are no sales. Without sales, there are no revenues. The world revolves around sales, but more importantly, it now needs to revolve around buyers. Buyers are everywhere. What are you doing to help them buy?

It requires the same determination, self-discipline and effort to keep New Year’s Resolutions and to follow through on goals as it does to be successful.

Let’s understand the meaning of each of these words:

Determination
The power and habit of firm decision making directed toward a particular goal and end result

Discipline
A commitment to yourself to do what you have to do even when you don’t want to do it

Effort
Amount of total work completed to reach a particular end result

Success
Achieving worthwhile goals

Goals are resolutions and are what motivates us. Resolutions, like goals, are our desires. Without goals or resolutions, there is no reason to act and no motivation to take any daily actions or go the extra mile.

There are two key factors in making a successful resolution. Firstly, a person must have confidence that he or she can make a change in their behavior and secondly, they must be committed (discipline) to making that change.

Behavior is the manner in which you conduct yourself. It is the way you act, function or react in any given situation. As you will learn, appropriate behavior provides opportunities to target your efforts. Opportunities come from setting goals and I encourage written S.M.A.R.T. Goals.

What do you want for your life, your career or your business? Who determines this for you and who can make it happen? What are the daily behaviors that you must apply to live the life of your dreams or to make your career or business a success?

It is the positive, implemented daily behaviors that will make a significant difference in your level of success. Once you identify the most advantageous behaviors and beneficial periods, remain in that zone and watch your time management skills and results improve dramatically.

Behavior, like attitude, begins with you. What you do for a living is your choice but there is a reason you made that choice which goes far beyond making money. Of course money has something to do with the choices you make but it is not the money that gets you out of bed in the morning. It is what you want to do with the money that keeps you motivated. It is the realization of your dreams and those dreams can be realized by setting goals, by taking the time to organize, to plan and to put your plan into action.

You must choose a goal, decide what you want to do, plan it out and discipline yourself to make it happen. Work on this discipline from the inside out and not the outside in. I’ve seen people overcome stuttering; grow from poverty to wealth and from no self-confidence to great confidence in themselves.

You may ask how this is possible. These individuals determined what they wanted for their lives and created a plan. Their plan had concise action steps and with determination they monitored and measured their progress. They literally disciplined themselves to achieve their goals.

One of my greatest lessons while working in sales is the discovery that we are constantly setting sales’ targets and objectives and being measured alongside them. This is a good practice and keeps us focused on our sales’ targets. Why not apply these same goal setting and monitoring strategies in our personal lives. Consequently, we can stay focused on our dreams and end up where we want to be.

Today, in most organizations, management devotes enormous energy to setting work objectives and conducting performance reviews for individual employees. Corporations go through this time-consuming and costly exercise to ensure the most favorable results for their firm.

In professions such as sales, considerable time is spent questioning, listening, discovering and understanding the needs of clients in order to provide a recommended solution or action plan.

In contrast, how much time and energy do you expend discovering your own needs and desires and then consciously setting objectives; developing action plans with measurable performance standards; and finally reviewing your own performance?

By engaging in such an exercise, you will be doing something about your life. You will be going to work on yourself, for yourself. This is where the real behavior has to start.

I refer you to “Disciplined for Life, You Are the Author of Your Future“. The exercises in Discipline 5, 6, 7 and 8 will help you to discover your dreams, organize them into a sense of priority and help you determine if you are prepared to pay the price (effort) to make those dreams a reality.

When you believe in your resolutions (dreams), nothing but self-imposed limitations will stop you from achieving them. Your first step is to define your resolutions as goals. A goal is a specific and measurable result that must be achieved within specified time, resource and cost constraints.

A goal is an end, a result and not just a task to be performed. It describes the condition we want to achieve.

Our goals guide our actions and help us plan at work and at home. When we focus on our goals (resolutions), our present is determined by our future…not our past. Keep in mind that your resolutions (goals) are an extension of your values.

Finally, you need to measure and monitor your progress on an ongoing basis. Without some form of monitoring you will not be able to recognize your progress and reward yourself accordingly.

This is where Discipline 11 evolves with the Monthly Monitor Chart. It helps keep you on track and makes discipline a habit by recognizing appropriate behavior. Remember, any behavior that gets recognized or rewarded, gets repeated.

If you don’t already have the book Disciplined for Life, You Are the Author of Your Future; I suggest you download the first three chapters free at www.DisciplinedForLife.com.

Next, don’t just read the book, do all the exercises in it as they come up. The uniqueness of this book and supporting audio and video programs is the fact it is all about you. By writing down the answers to the questions in the book, you are beginning to crystallize your dreams and take control of your life. You own the answers, no one else does. Those answers will help you develop the discipline to manage your time while you find yourself and become a leader committed to your purpose.

Record keeping is important. Writing down your goals and action plans represents a commitment. Otherwise your dreams are merely wishful thinking. You can reread and visualize written goals. They are credible and legitimate. They move you forward. When your goals are written, you have begun to act. Inertia disappears. You will immediately sense accomplishment.

How should you phrase your goals? Goals must be S.M.A.R.T.—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Traceable to a Timetable. Let’s look at each of these elements in detail.

1. Goals must be specific. “Happiness” or “success” is too vague. Ask yourself: What exactly do I want to do, to be or to have? For example, let’s say you are getting too close to weighing 200 pounds and you want to reduce to 185 pounds within the next six months. You could write: In order to be healthier and more energetic, I will lose 14 pounds within the next six months starting today, and I will maintain a weight of 185 pounds from this point forward.

2. Is your goal measurable? How will you know you obtained your goal?

3. Is your goal attainable? Give yourself a chance to succeed. Take little steps and succeed. Success breeds success.

4. Is it relevant? Would the attainment of the goal be worthwhile for you? Before you can answer this question, you need to know what kind of life you want.

5. Is there a way of tracking your performance on a timetable? How do you know you are getting closer to your goal? Select dates when you will measure your progress against the milestones in your plan. You will either reaffirm that you are on track or make adjustments.

Consider the following as you set each goal:

A. Is this goal really mine? Am I doing this for me or somebody else? If you are doing it for somebody else, you are not living a life of your choosing.

B. Is it morally right and fair?

C. Are my short-range goals consistent with my long-range goals? Keep in mind where you want to be 10 to 20 years from now.

D. Can I commit to completing the project? If not, don’t set yourself up for failure and disappointment. Save the goal for a time in your life when you can commit to making the effort.

E. Can I visualize myself reaching this goal? If you can’t see it, it won’t happen. Henry Ford said it best, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re absolutely right.”