Developing Personal Sales Mastery to Lead Your Team To Success
The Essential Principles of Goal Setting and Achieving

Goal Setting: The Power and the Problem

Holli H., an Account Executive selling to manufacturers, faced less pressure to make phone calls compared to a Business Development Representative (BDR). However, both she and her employer understood the necessity of regular phone calls.

Account Executives (AEs) in Holli’s company that initiated more frequent contact experienced more success. Holli utilized a goal-setting program to increase her daily calls from 8 to 10-12. She found this goal easy to manage and used Griffin Hill’s Goal Achiever App for daily evaluation.

Holli was surprised to see her commissions double in one month due to her simple goal. She eagerly paid off debts and was enthusiastic about her newfound understanding of goal setting

Research indicates that teaching goal setting and achieving principles to employees yields significant benefits. It enhances engagement and productivity, and fosters hope and optimism, along with greater emotional resilience.

Goal setters are akin to the pea pods in Vilfredo Pareto’s garden, consistently achieving more. While 80% of goal-setters do not write down their goals, they still outperform peers who set no goals. Remarkably, those who write their goals achieve 42% more than those who don’t.

If goal-setters outperform their peers of equal ability, are more engaged and productive at work, experience more hope and optimism, and enjoy higher levels of emotional resilience, where is the problem?

The issue is that most adults no longer practice goal setting. Additionally, managers who set goals for their teams often fail. Consequently, goal-setting behavior is minimal, resulting in a disengaged, directionless workforce that lacks passion and is prone to discouragement.

Studies show that a significant portion of the population does not engage in goal setting. According to the University of Scranton, only 8% of people set and achieve their goals. A Griffin Hill study found that while 80% of business leaders set goals, only 20% of them achieved none, 46% accomplished some, and less than 2% achieved all their goals.

Even though 80% of business leaders claim to set goals that are specific, measurable, and limited in number, only 33% of their employees can name their employer’s priorities, and only 16% understand the connection between their work goals and corporate strategies. Gallup reports that 70-85% of the global workforce is disengaged, attributing this to poor leadership and ineffective management.

The evidence is unequivocal: most adults, including business leaders, have not mastered goal setting and achieving. This leads to underperformance among workers and leaders.

Don’t despair, you can lead your team out of the confusing fog of goal setting and achieving misinformation. You can help your team grow, improve, and perform.

The vision, commitment, and hard work of early goal setters and achievers built our nation. Their aspirations led to the formation of colonies, cities, and states. Their persistence drove westward expansion, resulting in farms, ranches, and businesses, all reflecting their optimism.

You did the same. You had vision and dreams and worked hard to achieve them. That is why you are the leader you are. You may think that goal setting and achieving comes naturally—it did to you. But it doesn’t come naturally to most people, possibly including members of your very own team.

Leaders Teach

If goal setting and achieving are not innate for some teams, you can improve their lives by teaching these principles. By educating your team on goal setting, you can positively influence their future. Leaders teach; by imparting proper principles, your team can self-manage for better goal behavior.

For many executives, goal setting is second nature, making them unconsciously competent. They excel at personal goal setting but struggle to teach others. This instructional content can aid in educating your team. Use it to craft your lessons or share and discuss it with your team. Don’t let a lack of preparation or confidence prevent you from teaching goal-setting techniques!

Unconscious Competence

As a natural goal setter, it is highly likely that you are unconsciously competent. Dissecting and teaching these principles to others may not be easy. To gain more insight on how you can help your team, Griffin Hill offers a Complimentary Insider Membership which includes the Goal Setting and Achieving content as well as the Griffin Hill Goal Achiever App.

Demonstrate Interest in Those You Lead By Helping Them to Set and Achieve Personal and Work-Related Goals

By teaching your team about goal setting, you demonstrate care for their well-being. This fosters loyalty and commitment, resulting in increased engagement, productivity, and job satisfaction.

Four Pithy Paeons That Will Re-Shape How You Think About Goal Setting and Achieving

Thomas Gilbert, in his book on Human Competence, asserts that;

Common goal-setting mistakes include not setting goals, choosing the wrong ones, setting goals too high or too low, lacking deadlines, and becoming distracted or discouraged.

William Jennings Bryan, a renowned orator and politician, was his party’s presidential candidate three times in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He once said:

The destiny Mr. Bryan speaks of is that of a better life and a hopeful situation brought about by capturing our desires and harnessing them by using the principles of goal setting and achieving.

Beryl Markham was an adventurer, aviator, and author. In her book, West With the Night, she makes this remarkable observation:

Her contribution to our pithy quotes helps us to remember that goal setting and achieving are the result of daily measured effort. It is the aggregation of incremental improvement that leads to great achievement.

M. Russell Ballard is a business leader, entrepreneur, and religious leader. His contribution focuses our attention on the mastery of principles and techniques of setting and achieving our goals.

If we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential.

When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life.

Looking back on our lives, without having reached our full potential would certainly be a cause for regret. With regard to goal setting and achieving, we all live with pain - either the pain of effort or the pain of regret.

How to Master the Principles and Techniques of Setting and Achieving Goals

Avoid the trap laid by the well-intentioned but uninformed, who say you can’t set goals for things you don’t directly control. In a discussion with a group of CEOs, they were equally split on whether setting goals for sales and revenue were reasonable and effective. Some argued that because the buying decision of any given prospect isn’t directly in the control of a salesperson, setting a goal for closing was not helpful and bordered on psychological malpractice. Nonsense! These executives simply don’t understand that ENDS goals (goals that may not be in their direct control) represent the hopes, desires, and wishes toward which a salesperson strives. MEANS goals (activities that ARE in their direct control) stack the odds of success in their favor. Lack of understanding of the principles of ENDS goals and MEANS goals is a mistake that leads to performance incompetence!

If you want to elevate the competence and performance of your team consider some of the principles from the Griffin Hill SMARTER™ goals. You know all about SMART goals. But the competence of your team will be enhanced by learning about Griffin Hill’s SMARTER™ goals. We share a handful of concepts that cannot be found anywhere else!

Griffin Hill’s SMARTER goals is an approach that adds gravitas to goal setting and achieving. This Instructional Video makes it easier for leaders to teach and develop goal setting and achieving to the people they lead. By inviting every team member to study the content in advance, the leader can initiate a discussion where every team member contributes their best ideas based on the goal-setting instruction.

Here are some of those concepts:

Specific - Making goals specific will be made more powerful by including the answer to four questions:

1. What TYPE of activity will I do to achieve my goal?
2. With what INTENSITY will I do the activity?
3. . What will be the FREQUENCY of the activity?
4. With what DURATION will I do the activity?

Answering these four questions enables better goal behavior and success

Measurable - Choosing a range goal instead of a pinprick goal helps people to achieve more. There is a constant tug of war between setting high goals - shooting for the moon, and low goals - attainability. Setting challenging goals leads to higher achievement.

Unless the goal is set too high. When goals are too high, the goal setter may quit before they ever start.

Attainable - using range goals gives the goal setter permission to base the low-end of their range on the principle of incremental improvement. Incremental improvement is one of the best-kept secrets of high achievers. Aggregated incremental improvement is to achievement what compound interest over long periods of time is to the savvy investor!

Relevant - for Griffin Hill, relevancy addresses two questions. First, is the chosen activity directly connected to the accomplishment of the end goal? Second, does the activity capture the imagination and enthusiasm of the performer—will it excite adoption and engagement?

Time-Bound - People perform to deadlines. Without a deadline for action, no action is likely. For that reason, it is important to get the actions scheduled and on the calendar

Evaluate - Inspection is an essential part of accountability and making activities time-bound. Inspecting and evaluating on a schedule helps a performer to make essential adjustments. Important to the process is evaluating the effort of the performer as well as the value and efficacy of the goal itself. In some cases, the performer will need to adjust the effort that goes into achieving a goal. In other cases, they may adjust the goal. Evaluating goals on four different time horizons will impact the persistence of goal behavior. Goals should be evaluated each day, every week, monthly or quarterly, and annually. Daily evaluation should take no more than 5-10 minutes. Weekly evaluations could be 10-20 minutes. Monthly or quarterly (I prefer quarterly), evaluations should be 20-40 minutes. Annual evaluations will likely include setting new goals. This could take one hour or several hours over a period of days.

Record - As noted from the research, people who have goals but do not write them, achieve at levels higher than non-goal setters. People who write their goals achieve them at a rate 42% higher than those who do not write their goals. Daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly, and annual evaluations should be recorded. Recording the data of performer effort and results provides a baseline for continuous improvement. Evaluation and Recordation are made easier using the Griffin Hill Goal Achiever App.

These three important questions will be useful and powerful at the conclusion of the goal-setting process:

• Can I see it? - Is it easy to visualize the activity? Can I connect the dots between the activity and the desired result?

• Do I believe it? - Do I believe I CAN persistently engage the activity as outlined? Do I believe I WILL engage the activity as outlined? Do I believe the activity will lead to the desired result?

• Will I do it? - Am I committed to the activity and results?

When leaders implement these and other Griffin Hill principles of goal setting and achieving, they elevate performance in the near term and they shape the leaders of the future.

6 Dimensions of Fitness To Be Considered for Goal Setting and Achieving

1. Health and Physical Fitness - Health and physical fitness goals are among the most popular for goal setters. Losing weight is the top New Year’s Resolution year after year. Related goals include exercising more, stopping smoking, and drinking less. Health and fitness goals are related to longevity and quality of life.

2. Relationships and Social Fitness - Relationships and social fitness goals are related to the enjoyment of life. Improving the quality and quantity of relationships may require the development of better social skills in order to create and maintain those relationships.

3. Intellectual and Mental Fitness - New goals often take the form of taking classes, learning a new skill, developing a proficiency, learning more about an area of interest, or developing a hobby.

4. Work, Career, and Financial Fitness - Career development and financial goals are another popular area for New Year’s Goal Setting. People consider goals like earning more, getting a better job, saving for retirement, investing for the future, and accomplishing a career milestone.

5. Spiritual/Emotional Fitness - Spiritual and emotional fitness goals are growing in popularity. People are becoming more attuned to the importance of mental well-being and are looking for ways to improve emotional resilience.

6. Achievement and Personal Growth - People yearn to grow and progress. Employees value companies that provide opportunities for development. Learning and mastering the principles of goal setting and achieving bring additional authentic sources of fulfillment and happiness.