Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were a proven ‘formula’ to achieve your goals? You get so much advice today about goal setting and business planning. You have everyone and their brothers (or sisters) today promising to ‘coach’ you to achieve those goals. It’s confusing. But, there are scientifically proven strategies people use to lead to goal attainment. Knowing that formula, you can put that formula in place, making it easy to achieve your goals.
And, if you’re considering hiring a coach, check out the coaching program’s ‘congruence’ with this formula. Sadly, too many coaching programs today are either ‘now do this’ dictatorships, or ‘feel good with me’ squishy programs. Neither works on its own to help you achieve your best, because they deliver only part of the proven success formula. (They only work with certain types of people, too.)
Who Proved These Points?
The information in these six points is foundational in a large study by General Electric. I found the similar points in a study by Gary Latham for Weyerhaueser, too. In fact, these points are common to dozens of studies that have examined the conditions which must be in place in order to achieve goals.
Here is the first of the six attributes of the formula:
Goals must be specific and challenging.
In this article, we’ll investigate this first and major point. In later articles, we’ll discuss the rest of the formula.
Getting Laser Focus on Your Goals
As an agent, I dreaded the yearly ‘set your goals’ meeting with my manager. So, when I became manager, I searched for a better method to coach my agents. When I took the CRB (Certified Real Estate Broker) courses and learned how to make a plan using the strategic planning process, I was understandably excited. I immediately made a strategic plan for my office. Then, I decided to adapt that process for an agent’s use, because it really covered all the bases agents need to think about to create an individual plan that will work for their successes. I started test marketing the business planning system that I created to use with my agents. Through this test marketing, I learned what worked—and what didn’t.
What Didn’t Work………….
One thing I learned was that I hadn’t clearly defined what good measurable goals were. I let the agents tell me whatever type of goals they wanted. So, one person gave me this goal: “I want to be a great agent.” Another said, “I want to be the most educated agent.” Those types of goals aren’t measurable. Or, they don’t propel the agent toward production goals—the goals that make money and allow us to feed our families! From those experiences, I learned I had to guide them in the specific goals that gave them focus—and were measurable.
Revenue Unit Goals are the Magic Numbers that Keep You Focused
First, keep those measurable goals simple. We’ve got too much going on in our lives to keep track of a myriad of numbers. So, we need to prioritize the importance of the numbers we keep. Since we want to create strong, relationship-based businesses, we should focus on ‘revenue unit’ goals: Numbers of listings sold and sales. Why? Because each revenue unit represents potentially a happy referral source. If you focus on making lots of people happy each year, and re-communicating with them frequently, you’ll create the most pleasant, most cost-effective business.
