Know What Selling Means to You

In my 30-plus years of life, goal setting and resolutions have fallen into the hokey column. I've arrogantly left them to self-help gurus and those with more serious addictions than mine. I'd dabble in goal setting, making an offhand list the first of the year but always decidedly ended up relying on the “good things happen to good people” theory. Unfortunately this dismissive approach assumed I was a good person and left too much to fate. I couldn't then be too disappointed if I fell off track because I didn't assume any control in the first place. George changed all of that.

Speaking from my converted stance, I graciously acknowledge that there are still those who mentally roll their eyes at the very mention of goal setting. That's perfectly okay. I was there. I was there until one day in class George casually suggested that perhaps I was just fine hanging out in my comfort zone. Me? Comfort zone? No. Doesn't he know that I run a remodeling company? Remodelers and small business owners by their very nature don't live in “comfortable.” We are a breed of explorers, experimenters, risk takers. Fine, our profit sharing has stayed in the same general ballpark for the past few years. I drive the same tiny car. I hate when the phone rings with a prospect at the other end. I'd rather spend the day working on our new ad campaign then making cold calls to architects. I suppose I could concede that George has a point.

I had an assignment: Dream Collage. Hokey, but very, very powerful. I spent an afternoon tearing pictures out of magazines, sketching images, gathering small but meaningful trinkets from around the house and pasting them to a giant poster board. Over the course of a few hours, I created a visual guide of my dreams. Not a list in a private journal — a huge, colorful, splashy, tangible canvas. The following Tuesday I presented it to my class. I gave words to the images cementing the goals in my mind and publically asked to be held accountable. This collage is in my office. I look at it when I am on the phone with a prospect. The prospect, unbeknownst to him, is now an ally. If I sell work to this prospect, I am one step closer to achieving my dreams. Conversely, if the prospect isn't a fit, I have the courage to say so sooner. Why waste time on someone who is an impediment to your dreams?