Take just one of your 5-year goals from yesterday.  (We’d recommend choosing the one you most want to accomplish, as that’s a great one to test.)

To discover how ‘BAD‘ you want that goal, use the following formula…

• Give the goal a score out of 10 for BELIEF - How much do you believe you can achieve that goal, with 1 being low and 10 being high.
• Next, score the goal out of 10 for ACTION - What action are you taking right now that is taking you closer to achieving your goal?  Again, 1 is low and 10 is high.
• Finally, score your goal out of 10 for DESIRE - How much do you want the goal to happen?  (1 is low and 10 is high)

Take your three scores and multiply them as follows:

BELIEF x ACTION x DESIRE = Total (out of a possible 1000)

If you scored over 700 points on your goal, you’re very serious and you’re already taking action towards achieving it – well done!  If you scored lower than 700, which of the three scores let you down?  And what could you do to change things?

Often, our Belief and Desire is intact, but we’re let down by our Actions.  Tomorrow’s post is the final one of our goal setting series and we’ll start to have a think about taking some positive steps towards your 5 year goals.

1. One of the most important tips focuses on attitude.  If you enter a ‘sales opportunity’ thinking you’re going to fail, or be knocked down on price, then you probably will.  You generally achieve the outcome you imagine, so focus on the positive and you’re likely to improve your success rate.
2. Consider yourself to be self-employed.  Whilst you may well be self-employed, you may have sales agents or employees who are not.  But, it’s only when you (or they) take responsibility as a business-owner for sales and targets, that conversion rates increase.
3. Be the best sales person you can be.  If your role in the business is sales, you need to learn how to be good at sales.  Read sales books, attend seminars, develop your skills and invest in yourself.
4. Take a consultancy approach.  The top sales people see themselves as consultants or problem-solvers, not sales people.  They have great relationships with their customers and find solutions for them – which may or may not be what they’re trying to sell.  They put the customer and their relationship with them first and the sales follow.
5. Become a doctor – examine, diagnose and then prescribe.  Leading sales people ask lots of questions.  And the better the questions you ask, the better the answers.  You get to the route of the customers problem, before you ‘prescribe’ a solution.  That way, you can offer a better solution – and are more likely to get the sale.

These are just five tips from a single chapter of Brian Tracy’s book.  If you’re responsible for sales, I would recommend reading the rest of it (I won’t be sharing any more of what I read, as that wouldn’t be fair, so it you want to benefit from Brian’s experience, you need to buy the book – it’s only £7.50 on Amazon!)  It would also be worth sharing this book with your sales people.