Sales goals bring me back to 2009, when I was in the middle of training for Escape from Alcatraz. The prospect of swimming across the San Francisco Bay with 2000 other people struck plenty of fear in me, and fear is a tremendous motivator. So I talked it up, out of pride, and out of nerves, and all my co-workers were part of my training squad, in spirit.
A friend on my sales team at the time asked me 2 months before the race: "What is your goal, to win?"
This, I thought at the time, is a really good question. After all, I'm competitive. Of course I want to win. But this simply wasn't going to happen. I was competing against profesionals, experienced age-groupers who had raced it before, and some people who were just better suited for Escape.
But does this mean I shouldn't try to win?
I stepped up my swimming leading up to the race
At a prior company, at a sales kickoff meeting, all sales people were encouraged to write down their 3 goals for the year. "Think big!" "Don't settle for 100% of quota!" "Shoot for #1!!!" and other lofty objectives were encouraged by sales leadership. Everyone dutifully wrote down "300% quota!" "#1 Sales Rep!" and other goals that would be put up in cubicles and on monitors on every sales floor.
But here's the problem with lofty goals: they don't make you successful. As I was training for Escape, if I had simply written down "Goal: win the race" - I would have done myself a disservice. Instead, I wrote down my training objectives, 3 things that would make me a better triathlete, and give me a chance to win:
- Improve in the water: training swims at least 4x per week
- Diet: maintain my optimal race weight during training
- Hills: add elevation to every training session to get faster
For the record, I finished 411th.
