By Haleigh Powell, Huntington Outdoor

Have you ever seen the movie “The Greatest Showman?” The entire movie is about a boy striving to become better and more in life. Throughout the movie, you watch as he gives up everything in life to achieve “success.” At the end of the movie, he realizes that success for him is different then what he dreamed it would be. Sometimes success comes packaged differently than what we dreamed it would look like.

In sales, it is easy to be defeated by never-ending calls, meetings, and emails. Almost selling this or almost selling that is not enough, you need to know what your overall objectives are. Constantly working toward some unknown goal is a recipe for discouragement and burnout. Sales experience teaches you to set daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals so you know what you need to accomplish in order to feel successful. If you have ever created a business plan, you are probably familiar with ​SMART​​ goals.

• S​​pecific: Exactly what am I going to work toward?
• M​​easurable: I like to measure goals by monetary value realized.
• A​​ttainable: Make sure your goals are attainable for you in the time frame you have given yourself.
• R​​ealistic: Be realistic with yourself on how much you can achieve, but also do not be afraid to push yourself to new limits.
• T​​imely: Think of goals like college assignments, all goals should have a due date.
  Setting ​SMART​​ goals helps you to actually attain your goals. After all, if you do not have goals,how do you know you are accomplishing what you need to?

At the beginning of each week, I go over what I want to accomplish by end of the day on Friday. On Friday, I look over what I accomplished during that week and see if my goals and objectives I set at the beginning of the week were realized. Holding yourself accountable for productivity and accomplishments can be depressing sometimes, but it is always a good way to keep yourself on track. If I underperform in a week, I review my week and try to understand why I did not accomplish my goals. Usually, it just takes a few questions for me to discern why the week did not go as planned.

For example, here are some questions I ask myself to get to the bottom of a bad week of results:

• Was it a bad week for sales because of a holiday?
• Was it a slow week because of the time of year?
• Did I not work hard enough?

Set yourself ​SMART​​ goals and work hard to achieve those goals. It is much easier to have peace of mind in the evenings and on weekends when I know exactly what I need to accomplish in order to be “successful.”

Always realize that “Almost is Never Enough” for those who do not know what their goals are or how to achieve them.

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