20/20 Vision

Holy cow! Can you believe it’s a new DECADE?! That’s insane! I’m super pumped about it though. In fact, I’d like to start this off with a quote:

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” ~ Bill Gates

With that in mind, let me ask you a question; where do you want to be on December 31^st, 2029? What could you have accomplished? What does your business look like? What do your relationships look like? What does your investment portfolio look like? What does your vacation schedule look like?

I absolutely love dreaming about all this stuff. I also love figuring out how to make it happen, so let’s talk about that for a little bit. Let me give you a few ideas on how I approach planning. This works for any time period, just adjust the numbers.

1) Dare to dream. Go nuts. Brainstorm all of the things that you want. Time, money, lifestyle, relationships etc… I don’t limit myself in the initial phase. I’m sure you’ve heard of the term BHAG or Big Hairy Audacious Goal. What is that for you?

2) I start to narrow it down. What am I REALLY passionate about? What am I excited about and what am I willing to work for? Spoiler alert, it’s not everything from step 1. As I’ve gotten older and more in tune with my true self, I realize that some of the material things that I used to think were so awesome are really not that motivating for me. For instance, I’ve always thought that I wanted a Rolex watch. Well, I’ve had the money for one for a while now but still haven’t bought one because I really don’t care as much as I thought I did. In fact, I think I’m going to get a new Garmin instead. It’s way more in line with my lifestyle and what I find important.

3) Figure out what it’s going to take to get those things. How much money? How much time? What kind of relationships and with whom? What kind of person do you need to become? (Ooo, that’s a good one. The person you will one day be, you are now becoming. “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” ~ Charlie “Tremendous” Jones.) Most of these answers should be fairly straight forward. Achieving them may be a different story, but you should be able to figure out what it’s going to take fairly easy. For instance, if I want to qualify for the Boston Marathon, I need to run a 3:08:21 marathon. Easy to figure out, hard to accomplish.

4) Reduction to the ridiculous. This is one of my favorite things. You know that saying “When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.”? Well, figure out what that one bite is for you. Say you want to make $250,000 in 2020. Well that is $20,833 per month. Or $4,808 per week. So what do you need to do in order to accomplish that? Well, let’s say you make an average of $2,500 on each deal you sell (obviously figure out your own stats and insert accordingly…) that means you need to sell 1.9 deals a week or 8.33 per month. Well how many sales appointments do you need in order to close 8.33 deals? Let’s assume again that your closing % is 33%. You’re probably better than that, but let’s just use that. That means you need to have 25 sales appointments. So how many sales calls do you need to make in order to get 25 appointments? Well, if you’re making cold calls, probably like 500. But if you’re focused on referrals and referral partnerships, probably only 50. If you need help with that piece, that’s kind of our specialty, so hit us up. Either way, you have some numbers to work with. So if you know you need to make 500 calls to get 25 appointments per month, then that works out to about 25 calls a day. If you’re following up on referrals, that’s only 2.5 per day. So now you know what it’s going to take, given those numbers, to make $250,000 for the year.

5) Execute. This might not be the “easy” part, but at least you have a plan. You’ve figured out what it’s going to take to achieve your goals, and now you just have to do it. This is where the rubber meets the road. The great thing is, you can control all of this! It’s all about effort and consistency. If you put in the work on the front-end, the results will come. You must guard your time to execute. Be mindful of distractions and pit-falls. But if you can stay the course, then you cannot fail.

“Patience, persistence, and perspiration make and unbeatable combination for success.” ~ Napoleon Hill

So there you have it. An over simplification of the planning process, but effective. One thing that came up a few times in this is the idea of relationships. I can’t stress how important relationships are, both personal and professional. Solid relationships give you a support system, accountability, motivation, access to other circles and they help lighten the load. Make building and nurturing your relationships a top priority in 2020 and I promise you it will pay dividends for the rest of your life.