Yesterday I did a sales training program for a great company. This company is 64 years old and makes a product whose name you would recognize immediately. The sales training was scheduled the day after the company introduced a new product. This product has great features and outstanding benefits for their customers.

The outside sales reps were given a goal to sell 25 units within the next 12 months. For the purpose of this newsletter and to maintain the privacy of the company they shall remain anonymous.

I would like to share some of the thoughts I have on how to achieve consistent selling results. Here we go...

Let's talk about the principles of GOAL SETTING. Most people think they have goals when they really only have dreams. There is a simple yet powerful goal setting model. It has five steps:

1. A true goal is in writing. Always has been, always will be. If it's not on paper it's not a goal. When you take a thought and put it to paper it becomes a goal. This is a bedrock principle to goal setting. Write it down!

2. Goals must be specific. If you're goal doesn't contain numbers, it's not specific enough. There's a huge difference between "I want to earn a lot of money" and "my goal in 2002 is to earn $125,000." The specificity of your goal is what gets your creative juices flowing.

3. To keep you focused on your goal it must have a completion date. Too many dreams fall short because they never become written goals with deadlines. There is just something empowering when you establish a self-imposed deadline.

4. Goals never get done by themselves. Goals are "what" you want to achieve. Once they are established you immediately begin to think of "how" you will achieve them. Your goals must have specific action steps or they won't get done.

5. Your goals must be prioritized. Simply stated, if you have 10 goals, you must prioritize them using the numbers 1-10. This is another way of saying first things first - always focus on what's important first. Prioritizing makes you enterprising.

There you have it, the five-step goal setting model. I believe impossible dreams become possible when they're converted to written goals.

Don't take my word for it, listen to what Lou Holtz, former coach at Notre Dame has to say about goal setting.

He was inspired by David Schwartz's book "The Magic Of Thinking Big." After reading the book he sat down and prepared a list of 107 goals he wanted to achieve during his lifetime.

At the time, some of these were very lofty goals including meeting the pope, skydiving, being invited to a White House dinner, and even wanting to appear on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.

To date, Lou Holtz has achieved 99 out of 107 of those goals. He says, "My life changed after I made the list. I became a participant rather than a spectator in life."

This goal setting model works for personal and professional goals.

Yesterday, I told the salespeople to take their company's goal of 25 units and increase it to 28 units. Here's why I suggested that. If you always want to achieve your sales goals ? ALWAYS AIM HIGHER.

Here's another tip for you. Always take your annual goal and break it down to the smallest unit of measure. For example: 28 for the year is 14 for six months. 14 becomes 7 three months. 7 becomes, with a little rounding,
2 per month. 2 per month becomes 1 every two weeks.

If you want to achieve bottom-line results you can forget about 28 per year if you focus on selling one unit every two weeks. Goal setting is all about focus.

When you focus on your goals you will always achieve the results you are seeking.

Jim Meisenheimer is the creator of No-Brainer Sales Training. His sales techniques and selling skills focus on practical ideas that get immediate results. You can discover all his secrets by contacting him at (800) 266-1268 or by visiting his website: http://www.meisenheimer.com