Keep Your Eye On Your Goals

Last week I achieved a goal that has been a long time coming, proving to me once again that power of goal setting works. Some times it works sooner rather than later, but if you are committed enough to your goal it always works.

The goal was to be hired for an out of town speaking engagement for which I would be paid a speaking fee as well as have all my expenses paid. I set this goal back in 1998 when I first decided I wanted to be a public speaker and began attending Toastmaster meetings to work on my speaking skills. Just about every day since that day back in 1998, I've been working towards this goal.

The first time I proclaimed this goal to someone other than myself, was about 15 months ago, and I truly believe that was the catalyst that set the process of attraction in motion. I was delivering a training program on peak performance to a team of 16 insurance agents, and to inspire my students to set powerful goals, I led the way sharing my goal with them. At the time, I set it to be a 90-day goal and was hoping to have it fulfilled by June, 2004.

Although that time frame wasn't meant to be, as some other business building priorities got in the way, the goal was never far from my focus. Around that same time, I also shared my goal with a mastermind group of coaches with which I speak every week. Little did I know but those two small proclamations beyond myself set the wheels in motion for the fulfillment of that goal.

Last week, about 11 months later than I had originally planned, my goal came true in a big way, as I agreed to not just one paid speaking engagement outside of my area, but two.

Here are my keys to achieving the goals you set for yourself;
1) Be very clear on what you want, and communicate the goal in very specific terms;
2) Tell someone other than yourself (it puts the energy to achieve that goal into the universe and the law of attraction begins to work its magic);
3) Be committed to achieving the goal, and understand that it may not happen in the time frame you originally planned, but that if you keep working towards it, it will happen;
4) Always be willing to evaluate your progress and be open to making changes, and adjustments to your approach to move you closer;
5) Be open to asking for help, no one can succeed alone.
6) Know "WHY" you want to achieve the goal - the "Meaning & Purpose" you place on achieving your goal will keep you moving forward when the going gets tough.

Those are the six rules for goal setting, I've used to achieve every goal in my life, here are some of them:

1. Made my high school varsity baseball team as a sophomore after not making it as a freshman;
2. Became a professional sportscaster, producing and announcing football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey games while in college;
3. Received an internship with a minor league professional baseball team;
5. Became a General Manager of my own minor league baseball team in my 5th season in the game;
6. Achieved partnership/ownership status of my own minor league baseball team 5 years from the time of becoming a general manager;
7. Started a new minor league baseball team and helped the community to build the stadium that would be the team's home (the ulimate dream of every minor league baseball administrator);
8. Opened my own business 2 1/2 years from the day I decided to do so;
9. Joined the National Speakers Association at the end of my 2nd year in business for myself;
10. Contracted for a paid speaking engagement with all expenses paid for a conference outside of my local region;
11. Generated $100,000 in gross sales for my business in just my third year in business.

In looking back on those accomplishments, I hear a voice in the back of my mind saying, "If I knew then, what I know now...I would have set my sights even higher."

What about you? Are you setting your goals high enough? Many people don't set their goals high enough because they think they're going to have to work too hard to achieve them. But the truth of the matter is that you are going to work just as hard whether you set goals or not, so you might set powerful goals, and go for it. If you do, and you keep your eye consistently on the goals, the principle of attraction will bring them to you.

So, if you knew you could attract any goal into your life, what would you choose?

Subscribe to my newsletter...click here!

Want Quick Results? Turn to Your Existing Client List

One of the 8-Core Business Strategies of The Achievement Gym is called, "Create A Low Cost Marketing Funnel." It's a very important strategy because all of us who are solo-entrepreneurs do not have the mega dollar advertising budgets of the Fortune 500 firms. The past two weeks I was reminded of a lesson I learned a long time ago about generating marketing success in a small business. The secret to long term success, with less stress, lies within your existing client database.

Because a couple of members of The Achievement Gym were coming to the end of their year- long commitment in April, and were replaced by some others in my marketing funnel who have been waiting to step in, it was time to re-visit the status of my pipeline that was feeding the funnel to make sure my reservoir of prospects was being refilled (more on how I approached this challenge a little later).

First, let's talk about the key to making the marketing funnel work for you. The key to success is to build a reservoir of prospects who are at varying staging of the buying decision process. Some will be at the opening of the funnel, just becoming aware of who you are, some will be familiar with you and your business and you may have some type of relationship with them, but they are not yet really prospects for you. Some you may have had a deeper conversation about what you do and how you might be able to help them, and they may be considering using your product or service at some point in the future. Others are deeper down the funnel and closer to making that buying decision.

It's important to continually work your marketing funnel to effectively bring your prospects down through it, and check-in with each at regular intervals so it will lead easily to sales success when they are ready to make a buying decision.

How do you do this? You create what's called a "drip" campaign with a tickler system, whereby you consistently send your prospects information of value at varying intervals to keep in touch with them. This does a couple of things, one - it shows them you care about them, their business success, and that you value them as a potential customer, and two - it will begin positioning you as the trusted advisor to whom they can go to when questions about your industry arises.

I'm bringing this up because when I began evaluating some people who had been in my reservoir for a while, some who had been clients previously, I noticed I hadn't "tickled" them in a while and it was time to re-connect. I got on the phone and made some calls.

The results - 2 lunch appointments, 1 breakfast, and 2 regular appointments with no meals within the next 2 1/2 weeks. All of those I spoke with were excited to hear from me and open to discussing their present situation to see how I might be able to help. Today was my first appointment and it immediately resulted in interest in not just joining The Achievement Gym, but possibly an entire staff development workshop for a team of 14. A significant contract if it comes through. And, that was just my first appointment. I'll keep you posted.

So, there are two morals to this story. One is that the key to stress free selling is to mine the GOLD in your present reservoir of contacts and former clients, by connecting with them on a consistent basis. The second moral, is that it is important to constantly fill your reservoir with contacts that will enter your marketing funnel at varying stages depending on their situation.

This week take some time to review your past clients and identify the ones you did great work for, review the list of those that showed significant interest some time ago but just weren't ready at that time, but you haven't been in touch with in a while. Next make a plan to give them a call and invite them out to lunch. Let me know how it goes - you can e-mail me at Info@TheAchievementGym.com

Subscribe to my newsletter...click here!