Carol Bartlett is a senior level executive with broad experience in the oil & gas and transportation industries who manages more than $200M in annual sales. Using a combination of proven techniques, Ms. Bartlett focuses on growth results. She bridges theoretical business principles and philosophies to strategic actions that give profitable results. By deploying integrated proven strategies, she adds value to companies that want to grow sales and increase profits.

Jol Hunter has spent a large portion of his career as a partner with the national firm of chartered accountants and business advisors. In the past few years, with three other gentlemen, he has owned a substantial Atlantic Canadian business and so he is experiencing the joys and challenges of the ownership and operation of a medium-sized business.

Chris Spurvey spearheaded the growth of Plato Consulting to the point that it was acquired by KPMG, one of the largest management consulting firms in the world. In his time there, he sold more than $300 million in consulting services. After the acquisition, Chris changed his focus to helping other "non-sales sellers" find a way to grow revenue in a consistent, stress-free manner. He published It's Time to Sell: Cultivating the Sales Mindset, founded Make Sales a Habit University, and became a growth advisor to business owners and their management teams throughout the world.

 

In this week's episode, we talk about annual goal setting. We share with you our goals for 2019, how we were able to achieve our goals in previous years, and how we plan to achieve our goals this year.

We also talk about how passion fuels us to achieve our goals and remain open to the opportunities that are presented along the way.

This episode is a gold mine for tips about goal setting. Listen to the full episode!

 

Fueling Goals with Passion

I've been told by reliable sources that at one point our business school tracked 4,000 graduates during a 30-year period. The graduates were divided into two groups. One group was composed of those who were very deliberate, set specific goals, and made decisions that they expected would help them to achieve those goals. Graduates in the other group followed their hearts, their passions, didn't necessarily have direct objectives in mind, and took a more values-based approach rather than a goal-based approach. At the end of the 30 years, the school found that graduates in the second group reported happier lives and larger bank accounts.

But does that mean you shouldn't set goals? Not necessarily. But it provides evidence that goals are more easily achieved if they're driven by some fundamental passion.

 

Having a Work-Back Schedule

We recommend using a work-back schedule—a plan in which you decide what you want to achieve and then work backward to plan the steps that you have to take to get there. In putting together a work-back schedule, you may find out that you don't  know the steps. That's OK. Somebody has done it before, and you can find out the steps from them. Surround yourself with people who have done what you want to do.

 

The Path to Achieving Your Goals Is Not Always Direct

I prescribe to the idea of acting on intuitive impulses along the way to achieving goals. And I don't find that to be incompatible with using a work-back schedule and being methodical. I simply recommend that you never close your mind to opportunities or impulses that might set you on a different track.

Airplanes go off their calculated paths 90% of the time but still arrive at their destinations. What I'm saying is that, like airplanes, we need to be adaptable.

To learn more about these topics, listen to the episode.

 

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