JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 | TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE 65
THREE QUESTIONS
FOR THE NEW YEAR
By Jim Marshall and Clint Babcock
Sandler Training
of Tampa Bay
With the arrival of the New Year, you
may have already had the opportunity
to reflect upon the past year and
formulate goals (resolutions?) for 2017.
If not, “now” is a good time to ask
yourself three questions:
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sandler Training
provides proven, effective sales, corporate
and management training to high-achieving
companies and individuals throughout
Tampa Bay. Call Jim Marshall or Clint
Babcock at (813) 287-1500.
Do you want to grow your business
revenues and profits? Do you want to
increase your income? Perhaps you
want to expand your territory or staff,
develop key accounts, or grow your
customer base.
Whatever your goals, they must
be specific, and you must be clear
about why those accomplishments
are important to you. And the “why”
must be significant. The motivation
to pursue goals that have superficial
meanings or only provide short-term
gratification fades quickly.
Once you’ve decided exactly what
you want to accomplish, you must
determine how you’re going to do
it. For each goal, start with the end
result—the accomplishment of the
goal—and work backwards, identifying
the sequence of steps that will lead
up to that accomplishment.
You should also be brutally honest
with yourself about your ability and
willingness to execute each step of
your goal-achievement plan. Even the
most well-thought-out intentions will
fail if you lack the skills to perform
any of the steps or you’re unwilling
to do what needs to be done. If
you’ll need additional resources, for
instance, make arrangements well in
advance so you don’t slow down
your progress…or worse, bring it to
a grinding halt.
In order to determine if you’re on
track and on schedule in accomplishing
your goals, include benchmarks you
must hit to measure your progress
at points along the way. If you’re
off track, you can make adjustments
to get back on track and back on
schedule. If you wait until the end of
the goal period to measure results, it
will be too late to do anything about
it. Worse, you’ll feel defeated and even
more reluctant to start down that
path again.
The year will be exactly what you
make of it…nothing more and nothing
less. You have a choice: you can
develop lofty goals; you can develop
play-it-safe goals; or you can simply
let things happen as they may (which
means you’ll likely find yourself
playing a part in the accomplishment
of someone else’s goal).
1. What specifically do I want
to accomplish in 2017?
2. How will I do it?
3. How will I know that
I’m on the correct path
for accomplishment?