Goal Diffusion

We’ve noticed a pattern in our newsletters, at the conclusion of each year; we have focused on Goal Diffusion.  This year is no different and, in fact, there is even more urgency with this topic.  We used to call November and December: the Season of Goal Diffusion!  Now it’s January thru December!

George Dudley and Shannon Goodson of Behavioral Sciences Research Press coined the term in their book The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance.  We’re big fans of George and Shannon for shedding light on this issue.

What is Goal Diffusion?  Simply put, it is too many things coming at you at the same time: conflicting priorities, competing goals, competing initiatives, forms to complete, reports to write and even your own brilliant ideas!  This can be at the office, on the home front or even with your community activities. It does not matter. Due to Goal Diffusion, the first thing that typically happens (only 100% of the time) is that your goals drop followed by loss of physical and mental energy. In other words, you burn out. 

The impact of Goal Diffusion on sales can be awful.  It literally takes us out of the game.  Or as a friend of ours puts it: “I’m failing, but at least I’m miserable along the way!”

How can we sustain our sales activities and our sales mission while doing our best to enjoy our lives at home and during this great Holiday season?

In all of our work with clients, we have found that small incremental improvements can have significant effects.

Here are some suggestions:

• Go get Stephen Covey’s book First Things First.  We have found this bestseller to be immensely helpful.  The genius of Covey is that he asks the important question: Are you working on the “Big Rocks”, the high payoff activities?  Then he offers specific recommendations.  Our personal favorite is Chapter 9 – “Integrity in the Moment of Choice”.

• Plan your activities: Make a list of all of the things that you need to do between now and, for example, January 1st.  Don’t edit.  Put it all down.  This includes business activities (including prospecting, presenting, networking, etc.) as well as holiday preparations and parties.  When complete, go through the list and cross out anything that you don’t have to do.  Can you fire yourself from an activity or two?  Go through the list again and highlight things that you can delegate.  Go through the list again and choose things that you can complete in a more efficient manner than usual (like shopping on-line).

• Now you’ve got your real to-do list.  Get into the habit of doing this on a regularly scheduled basis (like every Sunday evening).

• Calendar Management:  Make appointments with yourself for each of the activities.  Block your calendar and don’t cancel that appointment!  Be especially careful to schedule your daily sales activities.  It is much more likely that you will skip sales activities rather than the company party. Stay flexible but focused.

• We’ve heard this one a zillion times – “limit email interruptions”.  Our clients have offered a variety of ideas like “Don’t even open your email until 11:00 a.m. each day”.  We tried this and couldn’t do it!  So we started from the possible – could we do this just one day a week?  Our day at Redmond Group is Thursday.  Another client (a sales rep) set up an automatic response on her email that she “…reads and responds to email at 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. each day”.  What might work for you? What’s reasonable?  What’s possible?

• Limit interruptions from colleagues - this can be a difficult one.  Is this meeting really critical?  Is my calendar, and therefore my time, controlled by someone else?  One of the responses that worked well for us in a former life is to say something like: “I’m pretty busy right now, can we meet on Friday at 5:30?”  Oh, the humanity!

• And keep in mind…a sense of humor is helpful!

In spite of Goal Diffusion, take a day off (well OK, half a day) and enjoy the season with the precious people in your life.

Happy Holidays!

Best wishes are flying your way,

Sales Coach Newsletter is a product of Redmond Group, Inc.  We are specialists in the systematic process of developing and retaining new business.  We design sales and retention process maps and unique measurement tools to track progress to meet business objectives.  We conduct in-house workshops, individual and sales team coaching, Webcasts and assist with product launches.
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732-957-0005, tom@redmondgroupinc.com