The Common Thread

With New Year’s only 2 days away, I’m starting to hear the chatter of “resolutions”.  Love ‘em or hate ‘em – which is it for you?  I love ‘em!  It’s a fresh start, a do-over, the excuse to dream big and ask “What if?”.  I’m actually pretty good at sticking with most of my resolutions, though I tend to use all 365 days to get there.

My annual “lose 10 pounds” goal is almost achieved at 8 pounds lost . . .  I still have 2 days to go so there’s a chance.  Then again, perhaps not, since I just had cheesecake as my dinner.

So with the idea of resolutions and goals I have a new plan of action for achieving my 2012 goals.  I recently listened to an audio book called The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone.  The guy is a bit wacky but I like his thinking.  (He reminds me of Jim Cramer, that guy on Mad Money that always seems to be yelling directly at me.)  The whole theory of “10X” is to supersize your goals to be so big that it sounds insanely crazy.  He doesn’t believe in setting realistic goals because it doesn’t keep us motivated long enough to achieve them.  In our minds they become not that exciting so we tend to give up. We don’t go into it with the intention to give up but our psyche just seems to go there and before we know it we’ve lost interest.

I’ll share an experience as to why I think there’s something to this idea.  I had a client that I needed to sell table top exhibits for last month.  I’ve been selling these table top exhibits for various events for them over the past 2 years.  I only needed to sell I think 7 or 8 to hit the budget number but because of a shortfall in previous month’s income, we decided to go for 12.  (I’m not sure who set 12 as the goal but since it’s my story I’ll say it was me.)  Twelve tables fit in the room comfortably so that was my new target.   So calling the same ‘usual suspects’ of potential exhibitors I was feeling discouraged as I was just trying to sell 1 at that point.  (I should point out that this client’s industry was particularly hard hit with the economic downfall.  I’m not that bad of a salesperson.)  Though I knew calling the same ‘usual suspects’ wasn’t the best way to sell the exhibit spaces I was stumped as to who I should be calling.

Then, I had an unexpected moment of rejuvenation.  One unexpected encounter sent my mind racing in a whole new direction of prospects and the sales pitch they needed to hear.  It worked.  With renewed energy and a fresh list of contacts I started making calls.  I also set my new “Awesome Goal” – yes, I called it my Awesome Goal - which was 18, the absolute maximum number of tables we could accommodate.  So where do you think I ended up?   I sold 15 and had 17 tables filled; one we gave to a non-profit and one we gave away in exchange for a free service the company provided at an earlier event.  We had several new companies participate, plus I left the client with at least 4 more companies interested in exhibiting at the next event.  They didn’t participate this time only because of scheduling conflicts or too short notice – not lack of interest.  Two companies were also seriously looking into becoming members.  All that because I set an ”Awesome Goal”.

So what changed?  While a fresh perspective on the marketing of prospective exhibitors got me going again I became almost obsessed, energized and refocused on that “Awesome Goal”.  I had the list of companies taped to my wall and checked off each one as they sold.  It was exhilarating as I got closer to that “Awesome Goal”.  I didn’t start out with the intention that I had to sell 18 tables but it seemed almost so unreachable that as it started happening something else took over and it just happened.

I heard this similar concept in an article by Martha Beck (she writes lots of things for Oprah’s website and O magazine) and she referred to it as a “WAG” or a Wild-Ass Goal.  So as we head into 2012 think about your Awesome Goal (or WAG if you prefer) and think about what you’re going to do.  Are you going to play it safe with the realistic goals or go for it with the Awesome Goal?  I already have my list ready and it’s AWESOME!!

Happy 2012!