The Ladder Method versus the Mountain

Any great achievement in our sales career most likely started off as a goal.  Maybe you went to the annual sales meeting and saw people on stage getting awards for their selling success.  You decided right then to make that your goal.  Maybe you decided you wanted to be a manager, VP or CEO of the company after a successful sales role.

These are all great reasons to set goals.  However, if you don’t know how your mind works, those lofty dreams can crush your desire to even try.

Before we dig into that last sentence, let’s review a few goal-setting quotes and thoughts.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step”

“Aim for the stars”

“Set your sights high, higher.  No, higher”

“Quit sandbagging”

“Success is built on a series of failures”

The Mountain Method:  Set a great big goal

Think about some of the great goals that have been set forth in history.  One of the most famous was posed by President Kennedy to land on the moon by the end of the 1960’s.  Now that was an inspiring goal to set!

All good and great, but not all minds work the same.  If you are 100 pounds overweight and set a goal to run a marathon; If you are in your first week of your sales job and set a goal to win president’s club; If you barely know how to pack for a backyard campout and decide you will climb Everest, these goals can seem so far off that they will crush your dreams.

When you are ten miles into your thousand-mile journey and your legs are killing you, that goal is going to weigh on you like a ton of bricks.  So, much so that you will be inclined to quit.  Just like so many that came before you, that lofty dream becomes a burden that you aren’t willing to carry.  You pass by that picture on the fridge with 6-pack abs and reach in for the 6-pack of beer.  You skip making that extra sales call as the journey to the million-dollar club just seems impossible.

The Ladder Method

What I found was the process of incremental goals.  You can call it the “ladder method” or climbing the ladder of success.  The ladder is not just an analogy.  It’s a literal thing when it comes to reaching a long range, ultimate goal.

After many years of goal setting, I’ve had my share of successes and failures along the way.  Early on in my journey, the ultimate goal seems too distant and the decision to turn back is really strong.  Our mind needs that feeling of making progress.  That’s where short-range goals come in.  You can call them check points or resting spots on the climb to the big goal.

In the earlier example of the overweight individual with the marathon goal, I was actually only 50 pounds overweight and I wanted to complete an Ironman.  With no earthly understanding if I could achieve it, my first goals were to get my weight under control and consistently exercise (walking).  That turned into running, then biking and running, then swimming, biking and running on a regular basis.  Six years later, I was ready for the final piece of the goal as I spent thirteen and a half hours in Florida completing an Ironman.

In the earlier example of the salesperson in their first week on territory who wants to be on stage winning President’s club, it was actually the month before I went into sales.  As I watched from the crowd, fifteen of the top salespeople were selected for the ultimate sales award.  Setting off towards that goal over the next few months just seemed futile.  My numbers weren’t even close.  I was more worried about just being able to sell anything, enough to keep my job.

So, that became my first goal:  sell something.  Seemed logical.  Then sell enough to keep my job.  That meant meeting the standard we had for supporting the cost of a salesperson and making a profit.  Next goal was top third in the region.  The great thing about sales is there are numerous ways to measure or look at results.  You can measure yourself by units, by dollars, by units and dollars, by increase in one of those areas, by new customers, by new customers within a product line.  The list of measuring sales success along the way is endless.

Those two journeys (winning President’s Club and completing an Ironman) were life defining moments.  That means their journey shouldn’t or can’t be easy. It has to seem so far off that most people quit on it.  That’s what makes them so great.  The secret goal-setting hack is to set small goals that seem easy to reach.  As you get closer and closer to the goal, the journey gets tougher.  There are fewer and fewer people left on the journey with you.  By setting these incremental goals, you can actually trick your mind into thinking the journey isn’t that difficult.

In the last 15 miles of the run in the Ironman, I was completely out of energy, electrolytes and hydration.  With absolutely no desire to keep moving, I would promise myself that I would stop running and walk at the next mile.  When I got to the end of that mile, I would make that same promise.  “Jog it out for one more mile and then you can walk” went through my head over and over for 15 more painstaking miles.  I did give myself several walking breaks as I promised myself.  Mostly to fill up on soda, extra salty pretzels and Gatorade, which were great rewards for such a journey.

I’m sure at some point in your selling career, you will be sitting in an audience at the annual sales meeting.  You will see those select few getting their chance to be on stage for the coveted prize.  Every salesperson in that audience wants to be one of those recognized.  Yet few will have the grit to grind it out once they leave that meeting.  Once the adrenaline of a cheering crowd is gone and they are left with the mundane tasks of working towards a distant goal, they will turn back.  However, you will be armed with a goal setting technique that can actually get you there.

So set your goals high, Mt. Everest high, land on the moon high, president’s club high.  Then, go to your Outlook calendar and schedule the small steps you can take to get you there!

Join me next time as we discuss those that help and those that hinder your journey!

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