Goal

This week, elevate your nonprofit leadership with insights from Mike Kenny. Discover the essential behaviors and strategies necessary for running a nonprofit like a successful business.

In this episode, Tom Scarda, franchise coach and advisor at the Franchise Academy, shares his insights on how to succeed at owning a franchise.

It’s a pretty good bet that, if you created a list of well-intentioned “resolutions” on December 31, one or more of the things you put on your list has already slipped more than you’d like to admit. Why? Here’s one answer. You may have resolved… you may even have talked to others about that “resolution”… but you didn’t commit.

In this episode, Dr. Benjamin Hardy will show you how to create the life you want by being your future self now! He'll explain why it's so important to have clarity on what you want and how to actually achieve it.

Brian Jackson, Sandler coach from San Diego, talks about productivity hacks: how to measure and manage productivity. Productivity is one of the most important aspects of any business. Productivity isn't just about quantity—it's also about quality. It can also be one of the most difficult to measure and manage.

How do we break the cycle and set goals that stick? Here are seven powerful goal-setting tips we share with our clients that turn "resolutions" into results. 

When you set goals for yourself, do you follow a clear process? Most people don’t. As a result, their ability to act on and achieve their goals is diminished.

Human beings always have been and always will be driven to improve their own personal situation. As the leader, you must tap into that motivation.

Mike Montague, director of community engagement at Sandler, interviews Brian Moran, best-selling author, on How to Succeed at the 12 Week Year.

Mike Montague interviews Dan Truehl, Sandler trainer from Wisconsin, on How to Succeed at End of the Year Goal Setting.

Mike Montague interviews Danny Wood, Sandler trainer from New Jersey on How to Succeed at Burning Bridges. Learn how to get from where you are to where you want to be by getting committed and becoming the person you need to be to reach your goals.

Mike Montague interviews Susan Sykes on How to Succeed at Taking a Day Off.

Mike Montague interviews Ryan Bennett on How to Succeed at Creating an Intentional Day.

Mike Montague interviews Steve Sims on How to Succeed at Making Things Happen.

Mike Montague interviews Kevin Shulman on How to Succeed at Achieving Your Goals.

There are many articles this time of year about how to improve individual productivity, thereby accelerating company growth over the course of the year. I’ve written my fair share of these articles and, of course, they have their place. 

There is something exciting about this time of year after the snow globes, the gifts, and the brightly colored lawn ornaments have been put away. It is the changing of the New Year.

Mike Montague interviews his co-instructor for the online goal-setting workshop, Amy Woodall, on How to Succeed at Setting Goals.

With the year winding down, perhaps it’s a good time to take stock of what you have accomplished so far this year, file away the lessons of your successes and failures, and begin thinking about what you’d like to accomplish in the coming year.

You’re a salesperson. You’ve just checked the wall calendar. You realize that October is officially over. A chill runs down your spine, because you know this means that you are over 75% through the year and you haven't yet come close to the track you need to be on to achieve your yearly goals.

There’s a wise saying popularly attributed to baseball legend Yogi Berra: “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.” Here’s how I unpack that wisdom: We have to know what our goals are, and we also have to know the specific behaviors that support those goals… otherwise, we may end up supporting someone else’s plan, rather than our own. With that sobering thought in mind, consider this list of five behaviors that are essential the achievement of any worthwhile personal goal.

This year, on Fridays, Dave talks about the attitude, behavior, and techniques of successful sales managers as he shares his thoughts on the 49 Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders.

Listen Time: 11 Minutes

Cal Thomas, Sandler trainer, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful at sticking with your goals and achieving them. Get the best practices for goal setting collected from around the world.

Listen Time: 24 Minutes

We're almost halfway through 2019, so...how is your business doing? Did you create a plan to follow for the year, and if so, have things turned out the way you wanted them to? If not, are you looking to create a plan for 2020?

SMART Goal Setting with Mike Crandall: Mike Crandall, Sandler Trainer from OK, and Mike Montague, VP of Online Learning discuss SMART goal setting strategies.

Watch Time: 56 Minutes

Brian Sullivan, VP of Sandler Enterprise Selling and author, interviews guest, Emma Barrett-Hoey about how to succeed at enterprise-level selling. Brian is a co-author of the new Sandler book, Sandler Enterprise Selling: Winning, Growing and Retaining Major Accounts.

The first month of the year is a classic time for sales professionals to focus with intensity on identifying and fulfilling their most important personal and organizational goals. We’ve noticed, though, that the goal setting behavior of an organization’s leaders during the month of January tends to have the biggest bottom-line impact on the year as a whole.

Read Time: 4 Minutes

We're already a few weeks into the New Year, and maybe you hope that things will be different. While they probably could be, it's always a good idea to take a look at what did and didn't work in years past in order to create a good game-plan for the future.

Well, it's official...the New Year is here. This past week Sherri and I decided to get away from it all and stay in a cabin in Oklahoma. While I can admit it was pretty uneventful, it did give me time to think about some "big picture" things, especially when it comes to this business.

The New Year is almost here...are you ready?

With January rapidly approaching, many sales leaders have started thinking about the team goals they will be setting for 2019. Team goals are important, of course …  but it’s essential to bear in mind that they are, by definition, the sum total of individual goals, and the individuals on your sales team are motivated by different things. Here are three critical steps sales leaders can take to support their team members’ personal goal-setting process in the coming year.

As the end of the year is approaching, sales professionals in every industry are eager to lay a solid foundation for success in 2019. One of the most common business-related New Year’s resolutions among managers is this one: “I will hold more one-on-one coaching sessions with the members of my team this year.” It’s fine as far as it goes … but is it enough?

With Q4 upon us, it makes sense to start thinking carefully about what has worked – and what could be improved – in your prospecting plan this year. Here are three ideas to consider that have helped salespeople we’ve worked with to create better “cookbooks” (daily and weekly action plans) for effective prospecting. You may want to consider adopting all three of them as this year closes … and as the next year approaches.

As we enter Q4, sales professionals in all industries are likely pondering the same question: Am I on track? If the answer, based on the best available hard numbers and the most objective real-world assessment, is “no,” then it’s likely that another question is looming in the shadows behind the first one: How do I get back on track?

As we approach Q4, it’s important to identify the strategies that will help us to make sure we are on track to hit or exceed our sales goals by the end of the year. With that goal in mind, consider the following four steps, which can help you set yourself up for a great fourth quarter.

Dave Mattson shares his thoughts about the new Leadership for Organizational Excellence training program by Sandler. Learn the structure and methodology to create real, lasting, positive change in your organization.

Have you noticed? Temperatures are rising, which means summer is about to make its big entrance. For most of us, that’s entirely good news, because summertime means things like vacations, cookouts, and maybe even some time at the beach with a good book. For salespeople, though, the advent of summer is likely to be a bittersweet development, one that leads to an unnecessary drop in annual income… because of the Myth of the Eleventh Commandment.

Karl Scheible joins Dave Mattson to talk about what happens with the competition is invited into one of your accounts. How do you deal with competitive bids or other situations where you are not the only provider?

You may have heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day – and it is. But here, it takes on an entirely new meaning. To ensure sales success, you should always start your day with B.A.G.E.L.S.

Dean Lindsay, author of How to Achieve Big PHAT Goals, joins Mike Montague to talk about making big things happen this year. Dean is a keynote speaker and author of other books. He can be found at  deanlindsay.com

I never thought of the late, great baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra as much of an expert on sales and sales management. Then I came across this memorable quote attributed to the legendary Yankee catcher and manager: “If you don't know where you're going, you'll wind up somewhere else.”

At its core, Sandler is a sales and management training company. We aim to provide valuable insight and applicable strategies and tactics to allow our clients to be more successful in their businesses. Therefore, we’re always excited to share those who have partnered with us on their journey to success.

The beauty of a sales career is that you’re able to get out what you put in. With relatively uncapped earning potential, the harder you work, the more successful you will be. The drawback to this element is that you’re never “off the clock” when you’re working in sales. It can be difficult to maintain an appropriate work-life balance, especially early on in your career, when you’re working to improve your practice.

In this special audio blog episode, Dave Mattson shares his thoughts for sales leaders. He discusses the importance of translating corporate goals into meaningful, personal ones for yourself and your team.

A few years ago, we published a blog detailing how to maintain progress towards your new year’s resolutions. With the start of 2018 upon us, it’s a good time to revisit these tips and see how else we can help drive you to success.In the blog post, Dave shared the importance of holding yourself accountable, partnering up for solidarity, turning your goals into a competition, finding a mentor to support you, and effectively executing your sales process.
While all of these tips are important, I want to share a few other insights that I’ve gained over my years as a Sandler trainer.

To be a successful salesperson, one needs to be aggressive and goal-oriented. While important, these competitive traits can lead to a one-track mind and give sellers tunnel vision. If this goes unchecked, salespeople will ignore the pursuits of their team members and their organization. The sooner salespeople realize that fostering an environment of mutual success is the most advantageous approach, the better.

As a salesperson, it’s easy to get wrapped up in your clients’ work and forget to save time for your own planning. How do you ensure that you end the current year on a perfect note? It’s important to finish strong and finalize your business plan before the calendar turns. Below are three ways to seal a successful year and begin 2018 with a bang.

The end of the sales year is a time for reflecting, preparing, and, in some cases, a bit of rushing. As you race to meet or exceed the lofty goals you set for the year, a skill that ties into all three of these areas is overcoming objections. As you follow up with prospects and clients leading into the new year, it’s important to be prepared for their excuses and challenges, and ready to respond to them. Below are four ways to prepare for objections that you can put into practice today.

With the year winding down, perhaps it’s a good time to take stock of what you have accomplished so far this year, file away the lessons of your successes and failures, and begin thinking about what you’d like to accomplish in the coming year. 

We just finished watching the first total eclipse of the sun since 1979. It got dark, it got cool, and it looked fascinating through the eclipse glasses. Which got me thinking, an eclipse is a blockage. It doesn’t let the sun come through to the earth.

There’s an adage that rings true for sales careers, “if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.” Proficient salespeople have some of the highest job satisfaction across all industries and can have very rewarding and lucrative careers. On the other side of the coin, selling — especially commission based selling — isn’t for everyone. Inexperienced or ineffective salespeople may have a hard time breaking into the profession.

Developing a championship caliber sales team should be the goal of any sales leader. All champions, whether it is the Cubs, Patriots or newly crowned, Tarheels, are focused on doing their individual roles as well as possible, committed to the on-going improvement of themselves and the team, the culture sets high expectations, and the teams win. As difficult as this may be to accomplish for your sales team, it is not as hard as you think if you can implement these four championship elements.

It’s not uncommon for a new hire to start out strong.  But after the initial excitement and enthusiasm for the new job fades, the behavior, performance, and “numbers” follow suit.

You’ve closed the deal – but your job isn’t done quite yet. Managing client expectations can help you make the most of your new relationship and ensure you are striking the right balance. By working together to outline goals, define success, and clearly communicating your progress and milestones, you can increase transparency to build the long lasting relationship with your new client.

You’ve thought it out, gotten motivated and set a lofty goal for your sales and performance this year – so you are all set, right? Not so fast; setting the goals is just the beginning. Careful planning now can help you beat the odds when it comes to your sales goals and ensure you have the successful year you are planning for. Setting the right goals for the New Year is a great start. In a recent post, we covered the best way to set obtainable goals that are SMARTER – using a specific format designed to ensure your goals are measurable and attainable. Whether you use this system or take a different approach, the things you do in the first quarter will have a big impact on your outcome at the end of the year.  

It’s that time of year again. During the month of January, we’re likely to make promises to ourselves about how we’re going to do better, how we’re going to shake things up in the year to come, how we’re going to make a positive, lasting change in our lives and our careers.

It happens every single year. You begin with lofty sales goals and quotas in January – but by December, you wonder what happened and end up trying to figure out where your team went wrong. Lack of motivation may not be the problem – you may just be taking the wrong approach to goal setting.

Take a look at some of our client's biggest success stories from 2016.

2016 has been a year of many successes. Whether you are a sales representative, a sales manager, or simply interested in learning more about trending topics in the sales industry, we hope you have gathered some key insights from our blog this year. Before moving into 2017, we would like to take a look back and highlight some important topics from 2016.

Our experience with sales teams is that less than 20% of all salespeople set written goals of any kind. We estimate that the income of this elite minority of salespeople is predictably and consistently greater than the 80-plus percent who don’t set written goals — combined! You can help each of the members of your team join the ranks of the top performers… by helping them to craft strong written goals.

Leaders need to be involved in both strategic planning and team goal setting, but there’s a built-in problem here. Teams often tend to focus on immediate tasks, on “putting out fires,” and on familiar routines rather than the strategically vital organizational targets we set for the coming year.

There is something nearly magical about this time of year.  No, it isn’t the snow globes, the gifts, or the brightly colored lawn ornaments.  It is the changing of the New Year.  One simple turn of the calendar page evokes the mental sensation of a fresh start. 

A successful sales year relies on good planning and smart strategy. Any plan for success requires that you create goals for yourself and your sales team. But no amount of planning or strategy sessions are effective if the goals are unrealistic and can't be met. Setting and achieving realistic goals are critical to meeting sales quotas or any other benchmarks of success.

As the first quarter comes to an end, it’s appropriate to review your department goals and measure your progress. Will your sales team hit the quarterly benchmarks for your department’s strategic initiatives? Have they made significant headway? Or, have they fallen behind already?

Clients, vendors, sales representatives, and products fill up most of your time, leaving few minutes each day to organize yourself and clear the clutter from your desk or mind. January is “get organized month,” but busy sales representatives and managers can’t devote an entire day to administrative tasks without losing potential profits. Here are seven ways you can create organization to drive success in ten-minute increments any day of the year.

We know from some extensive research on goal setting that most people make a New Year’s wish instead of a resolution. Proper goal setting requires commitment to your dreams. It gives you a road map to follow, allowing you to focus your efforts on the right thing at the right time, and holding you accountable for progress. If you are committed to succeeding in 2016 and want to do something about it, then follow these 6 steps to a perfect goal setting plan for this year and the rest of your life.

Understanding when to take a coaching approach over a managing mentality can make a huge difference in your effectiveness as a leader. To be an effective leader you need to master both leadership styles; the key is to know when to wear which hat. When you're managing, you're often organizing a project, providing instructions, outlining the end goal for your business, and you may find yourself being more directive and task-oriented

Sales slumps happen. They are guaranteed to hit and, when they do, they put intense pressure on your team to perform. You, as a sales manager, should be prepared to lead your team out of the doldrums effectively and efficiently. We've identified 6 things exemplary sales managers do to drag teams from the muck. There's no perfect solution to sales slumps, but these techniques will help mitigate damage and keep your staff afloat through the toughest times.   Identify and address problem

So when did you start saying, "I'll get to that tomorrow" when it comes to your goals for 2014? January 2? January 10? Did you make it all the way to the Super Bowl before giving up? If you've fallen short of a goal already or are on pace to fall short before the end of the year, you're trapped in the procrastination triangle. What is the procrastination triangle? Draw an equal sided triangle. Label the top "no goals," the bottom left "no plan" and the bottom right "no discipline."

"A person's burning desire to achieve something must come from within." You've set lofty goals for 2014 but have you also built the plan to achieve them? Often we fall into the trap of setting goals without 'building a plan' to achieve them. If you decide to make one change this year – 'build the plan and then implement it'

Here's a quick acid test of your hiring-to-turnover ratio. How often are one of these phrases heard in your company? - I'm not a micro-manager. - I hired them to... - They know what they're supposed to do... If our business world was homogenous then those phrases would be correct because every sales job would be exactly like every other sales job. Every expense filing procedure would be exactly the same at every company and every role would have exactly the same weekly behavior expectations

I am a "serial goal setter"! I have used goals all my life to chart my path and measure my progress. Perhaps it's my need to be in control that has driven me to do this or my desire to anticipate what may be looming over the next horizon. Be that as it may, I do know that far too many sales people allow others to chart their course.

Attending a networking event? WHY?? That may seem like a strange question, but time is one of our most limited resources! Taking a few minutes to evaluate why you should attend THIS particular networking event may save you hours of unproductive time and energy.Often, sales professionals tell me that they make their decision to attend an event based on the location of the event and their calendar availability. Instead, base your decision to attend an event based on: Will your ideal target market likely be there? If not

I didn't begin my business life with a burning desire to become a career salesman. As shocking as it is now, I actually thought that I might become a dentist until it registered that I would really have to put my hands in some other person's mouth.

Why? Why do we get up every day and go to work? Because we have bills to pay: Really? Listen to the news-not paying your bills is now as much a status symbol as a Gold Card in the 1980's. Because that's what is expected: Really? In most companies, the last time you saw your job description was the day you interviewed-and you don't know what is really expected, do you? Because employees depend on us: Really? Management texts say a great manager implements systems that will operate well when management is not there. Really it's because Mom or Dad said so

Last week, my clients and I were talking about how to respond to adversity. If you made it through that message and you still have your head up high and your eyes forward, you might be asking the question: "What do I do now?" When we say something like: "There are people who say there is a recession, I decided not to participate," we are not being cute and we are not putting our head in the sand.