Being Relentless (when targets are tough)

If you receive your target for the new sales year, the next quarter, your next goal, when have you ever hit it out of the park after saying "I'll try"?

Saying "I'll try" is the single worst thing you can do for yourself when you're in sales.
It means you've allowed yourself to fail.

In those three words, you have accepted failure as an option and therefore the bar you've set is either too high, and you KNOW you're going to fail but don't want to admit or say so, OR you have no confidence in yourself with regard to the task.

Either way: it's not good.

So what to do?
In motivation, half quoting Anthony Robbins, the potential shapes your actions which in turn deliver results that shape your belief system, which in turn shape your future actions, because they influence your expectance of your potential going forward. (see figure)

If the bar is to high, try too determine why you think that is the case.
If you've received a quota, or you've given yourself one that is double the single best sales performance in the company's history, you know it will be near impossible to achieve that goal.
Even if you peak and achieve 90% of that, you will still hurt your own confidence for not hitting the target, regardless of it being a stellar performance. Find one that is challenging yet achievable. So that you know that you can actually celebrate hitting your milestone within a reasonable amount of time IF you go at it relentlessly.

If you think the bar is too high because your past sales just don't add up to attaining that next level, consider this:
If you were a 1,5 year old learning to walk and you were thinking only of past results, chances are that you'd never try again and you would not learn to walk.

We all know this is not what kids do. They look at what's possible. They have plenty of examples nearby of people doing what they're attempting to do. If you're not the #1 on the sales performance list, you have your example of what's possible. Copy, try, fail, try again, and again and again. Think about that 1,5 year old that is relentlessly trying to make it happen. The child is not thinking about how much it would hurt if it would fall. It's remotely thinking about how cool it would be to run, but it's not attempting to run, it's trying to learn to walk first.

The child is not thinking about 'trying to make it happen'. It's making it happen! But realize that making it happen comes with falling... and with getting up another to time. SO: Learn from your mistakes and do better next time.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of...insanity.
So: if you're doing the same things over and over again, yet you're expecting the results to be much better, or absurdly high: think again. Learning means adapting, perfecting, changing, improving.
It means you're consciously doing what you're doing, analyzing what you're doing and constantly trying to improve. Only then, you will hit it out of the park.

If you catch yourself saying or thinking: "I'll try", remember the 1,5 year old that is RELENTLESSLY making it happen. It is not considering failure as an option.

Happy Selling!
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