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Now’s the Time to Avoid the End-of-Year Blues

By Will Turner

It’s mid-year and time for a quick reality-check. Are you where you need to be? When you compare your annual sales goal to your mid-year results, are you on target? Have you brought in at least half of your revenue goal for the year yet?

If you’re over half-way to your annual goal, congratulations! Keep up the good work. If you’re achievement-motivated, you may want to bump up your goal for the second-half of the year. Take advantage of your momentum and really have a record-breaking performance.

If, on the other hand, your numbers are falling short, it’s time to take action. Here are some steps that you can take to salvage the year and end it with a bang.

Do A Brutally Honest Self Assessment – It’s time to get real. Why are you behind in your goals? Is it because you don’t have a system for prospecting, you’re wasting time with unqualified prospects, you’re not motivated to ‘bust it’ every day, or some other reason?

Deal With It – Whatever is holding you back will continue to hold you back until you address it. Spend time focusing on your issue until you come up with a solution. Use the “time out” process outlined in the “Lessons From A Serial Entrepreneur” article in our newsletter archives to really make a break-through.

Get Help – If you can’t solve your performance problems by yourself, get help. Depending on what you need, seek the appropriate counsel. It could be from a colleague, your boss or a coach. You don’t have to do this alone. Getting the appropriate support and creating some accountability for yourself through others can have a huge impact.

Create A Plan – If you have to make up for lost ground, you’ll need to come up with a detailed and realistic plan of how you’re going to get where you need to be by year-end. It should be obvious that doing the same thing you did in the first half of the year is not the answer. You have to change to get different results and you have to make sure your changes are incorporated into a plan that will keep you on target.

Execute – A plan without action is worthless. You’ve got to be disciplined in doing the things that will make you successful. Tap into your internal motivations and plan a reward for yourself based on your results. Make the reward something that’s meaningful to you and appropriate for your achievements. If you’re a consequence-avoider, set a penalty for not hitting your goal that will keep you from straying from your plan. Once you have your reward and penalty in mind, you’ll need to stay focused on doing what you need to do – even when you don’t feel like doing it. That’s what separates the goal-achievers from the goal-setters.