Tis The Season For Goals

Tis the Season that the visions of goals dance in our heads,  goals of years past, goals of the present, and goals of the future, haunt our minds and chase away our sleep.

If you are currently chasing down the finish line on your goals for the end of the year, Congratulations, keep going, you can do it!!!

If you gave up on your goals months ago, you are far from alone. Would you like to be in the position those above are next year?

If you aren't going to miss your goals, because you never set any for this year, is it because you find them frustrating and a waste of time since you never hit goals you set anyway? Would you like to know that is one of the most common things I hear when I am visiting with agents, no matter what flag flies on their office. It isn't surprising since most people have never been taught how to set goals that will be a driving force for you.

 Are written goals important? There was a study done years ago where they studied a freshman class at Harvard finding out how many had clear specific written goals, and in the hallowed halls of the prestigious institution only 3% had done so. When they checked in on them twenty-five years later they learned those 3% held 80% of the total wealth of the class. Coincidence?

What most people do wrong is they just decide out of thin air what they will set as a goal, how many sales, how much money they would make, whatever, then go out and try to reach it. They may even go so far as to break it down to what they need to do a month to reach their yearly goal in dollars or sales. However they have no daily action plan, they have no emotional commitment to it, they are doomed to fail. At some point through the year, normally early, they look up and see how far off they are from their target and decide it was a stupid idea anyway and bail on it. Does this sound familiar?

 Let me suggest a change of strategy. Rather than just pulling a number that sounds good out of the air, let's arrive at a number to accomplish something you really want. Let's start with Why and then figure out How. What is your WHY, what do you WANT? Take some time to soul search and figure out something you really want, a family vacation, a cruise, a new house, new car, a Rolex, something for a family member, your church, whatever it is that really moves you. It doesn't matter if anyone else is excited about it, what matters is that you are.

 Now, figure out how much that WHY is going to cost over what it takes for you to cover your living expenses for the year comfortably. Let's say your WHY  is going to cost you 10,000.00 cash and your standard of living is 70,000.00, now you know you need 80,000.00 this year to reach your WHY. Adjust up or down as needed for your standard of living and your own WHY.

 So if you need to make 80k, now we need to figure out how much you make per transaction and your average drop out rate. In other words how many of your contracts last year fell through for whatever reason, let's say it was 10%.  Now divide the average per transaction say it is 3,000.00  from the 80k so we get 27 transactions and then multiply  by 1.10 to get 30 transactions, or 2.5 a month.

Next step is to start setting activity goals, those are things you have complete control over, unlike the above production goals. To set activity goals we need to look at some of your averages, what is the number of people who you have a face to face appointment that you get on a contract? How many phone calls (this could be texting, IM on Facebook, whatever) do you need to make to get one appointment? Now how many contacts or suspects must you make to get a phone number to call?

Now we know you need to write 30 contracts to get 27 closings, let's say our math said that you wrote a contract with 40% of those who you met for an appointment, (your numbers could be higher or lower,) so you must meet with 75 people to get those 30 to end up with 27.

 To get those 75 appointments we have to call people, how many people do you normally have to call to set an appointment? Let's assume 3 for 1 appointment, so now we need to call 225 people to set those appointments. Now, how many people do you have to meet to get contact information to make those calls? Let's assume 3 to get 1 number, these could come from Open Houses, Internet leads, referrals, standing in line with them at a store, where ever you meet people, now we see you need to have conversations with 675 people.

Let's break it down, that means you need to bump into 56 people a month through any source you use, to get 18.75  calls for appointments a month and we should get 6.25 appointments a month giving us 2.5 contracts.

Take that down further, 56 people a month becomes 14 a week or 2.8 a day if you work 5 days a week. Those 18.75 calls per month become 4.6 calls a week, or 1 call a day five days a week.

So to reach your 80,000.00 goal to buy your 10,000.00 WHY you will meet 2.8 new contacts per day somehow, and will call 1 prospect per day five days a week.

If this is brand new to you, my I suggest that you give yourself rewards for hitting your goal every week, if not every day. It doesn't have to be expensive, just something you want. Learn delayed gratification it could be you love one of those fancy Starbucks drinks and you get a few each week, take them away from yourself unless you hit your activity goal the day before, make them a reward. It matters not what it is, just that you want it but won't let yourself have it without earning it.

Everyone should put rewards for each month if you reach your goals that month, maybe a massage, a cigar, who knows, whatever floats your boat. If you focus on the daily activities and reward yourself for achieving them, you will find that this time next year you will be chasing the victory and that big exciting WHY!