the watch of time

Anyone involved with building a successful business knows that it grows, or it founders. If increasing the pool of customers or sales does not occur each year, then the business will go downhill; no matter how effective one is, drop-offs inevitably occur with the current base, for a variety of reasons.

In the October issue of The Insurance & Investment Journal, the ‘advice’ column addresses the issue of staying on track with goals, with the carrot-on-a-stick of increasing results by as much as 500%.

As far as stretch goals go, this would seem to be darn close to the top of reasonable. The columnist feels this is achievable. How?

He suggests strategies and activities, fine tuning core templates, such as…

• Make performance goals about more than money, with emotional connection to increase commitment
• Goals set too high or too low aren’t written in stone, so adjust them as warranted to a more balanced level
• Encompass the scope of three classic goals: activity, personally controllable, plus amount of new business, in helping real people, plus amount of new income, in building one’s own business
• Have an ‘accountability partner’, someone reportable to monthly, as well as a colleague with whom one can share daily stories of the battles and comparative successes in the field; accountability breeds performance

However, it seems to me there are some obvious examples being overlooked:

• Become an expert in written and on-line forms of white-out
• Become an expert in marketing your expertise concerning written and on-line forms of white-out
• Keep personal notes sufficient for some day scribing the best-selling book, “More than One Way to White-out”
• Feel the sense of accomplishment of carving your goals in actual stones
• Make sure your minimum bar amounts to much more than just being liquid
• Learn to love ratios just as much as they love you

Clearly, the more of such wisdoms one can absorb, the better and bigger.