Setting Extraordinary Goals: Passion and Focus for Value Creation

While every sales leader and team is different, those who generate extraordinary results time after time share a passion and commitment to defining and accomplishing extraordinary goals. It is the extraordinary goals that drive them to form an effective team, develop a sales strategy, activate that strategy, and keep laser-like focus on short-term actions that eventually lead to the accomplishment of something extraordinary.

The Clear, the Stretch, the Extraordinary

What is an extraordinary goal, why is having one so important, how can management help, and what happens to teams and organizations that don’t set them?

A clear goal can be forecasted. It’s not a great or exciting goal, but the odds are high that you will achieve it.

A stretch goal is defined as the next level up, or upside goal. It’s a lot more rewarding but the chance of achievement is less. While both clear and stretch goals may be large, they are business as usual.

Extraordinary results come from goals that are significantly beyond what was expected. An extraordinary goal takes the clear or stretch goal and adds something that takes it to another level. After setting a clear- or stretch level goal (whether it’s for a sales meeting or for a major opportunity), ask this question: What else could I include that could bring extraordinary results to my customer and my company?

Why does this focus on extraordinary goals generate optimum results for sales leaders and teams who consistently set them?

• A true commitment to developing extraordinary goals forces you to better understand your customer and to align your goals to theirs.

• The team members who will work with you to accomplish this goal will want to be involved. Why Extraordinary goals are exciting, particularly when the team collaborates on a potential way to achieve them and identifies short-term “best next actions” that will help drive momentum.

• Achieving extraordinary goals usually takes less work than you might expect. The strategies and work plans are crafted differently—with more aggressive actions and timeframes than business as usual.

Selling organizations that are in react mode are often at the mercy of other people’s agendas. If they don’t know where they are going, then they wander all over the map, and wandering takes more time. A team with an extraordinary goal will typically develop a strategy that takes them on an exciting and rewarding journey to reach their destination. Done well, this strategy will help establish the team as a Trusted Advisor to the customer.