You Don’t Get What You Want in Life; You Get What You Expect

Some questions for you…

Do you know where you’re heading? In work? Away from work? In Life? Where is it all leading to? Does it have to lead anywhere anyway? A bit deep for a Wednesday? Maybe. Let’s drill it down to your business, even your sales, especially your sales… What actions are you taking to get you to where you want to go?

That’s assuming you know where you want to go!
How much of a plan have you got? So many sales professionals I meet have lack-lustre goals, if they have any at all; “I want to reach budget”, “I want to achieve the annual bonus”, “I want to progress”, “I want more money” and so on. Often not specific. Often just so so.

How about sprucing things up a little?

You can have mere wishes…
…or you can have dynamic expectations that really motivate you to reach for the stars. When you have mediocre goals – and let’s face it, “I want to reach target” is fairly mediocre, you’re setting yourself up to be ordinary.

Shouldn’t you really be aiming for outstanding?
It’s wonderful to experience the curiosity and confidence of young children. They believe that everything is possible. But what happens between the age of children and teenage years? And beyond? Something comes up that gets in the way of those early dreams.

It’s all about expectations
I’m not sure who said this but I wholeheartedly agree with it… “You don’t get what you want in life; you get what you expect”. There’s a massive difference. Most people expect ordinary. In fact many sales people expect ordinary. Many business owners expect ordinary. That’s fine if you want ordinary – because that’s exactly what will show up… ‘better to aim low and not be disappointed’ and all that.

But what if you’ve had enough of ordinary? What if you want more? To start with, how about expecting more? What if you decide that instead of settling for mid table in your sales league you expected to be in the top three? Instead of growing your business at 5% next year, what if you decided to expect 10% growth? And instead of converting your leads at the same 25% as the last few years, how would expecting a conversion rate of 35% sound?

Goals
I don’t know where you are right now on your journey but what I do know is that most people who don’t achieve the things they want in life usually have pretty mediocre goals and mediocre expectations to start with.

How often do you start work with clear outcomes to achieve that day? How often do you set really aspirational objectives for the month? How engaged are you with the goals of your team?

Challenge yourself…
How could you increase your expectations tomorrow? Or today! What would your new expectations be for Friday 20th June 2014? What does real sales success mean for you? Maybe in terms of units sold, revenue, profit, lead conversion? What should you really be expecting in your career between now and three years from now? Where do you expect to be? What are you expecting to be doing? And who with?

Play with this. Imagine. You already know that tomorrow’s realities start with today’s thoughts — so get thinking! Put some meat on the bones. Really raise those expectations. Get used to wearing them. Be comfortable with them. That’s where you’re heading after all.

Raise your expectations and you’ll have started a journey. A journey that will encourage your brain to deliver new, better and imaginative ideas to achieve those expectations and goals.

Think Big: Expect Big: Plan Big: Act Big

Until next time.

Leigh

PS: Check out my recent article for O2’s “The Business” – Click Here to access “Losing Sales? Here’s Why”

For previous ‘Tricks of the Trade’ go here