What is the difference between making a decision and making a plan?
A well-crafted plan is a guide or roadmap that can lead to a worthy goal or achievement. If you follow it, success will usually come, and the goal or objective will have been met. On paper, a well-thought-out plan looks great. However, unexpected obstacles may crop up when executing the project, which causes us to divert from the plan.
For example, let’s say you plan to get ten new sales this month, but something comes up, and your plan likely fails. However, when you decide to get ten new sales this month, you get ten new sales. The difference between a plan and a decision is that your focus is now committed to acquiring sales, and through your decision, all other options have been put aside. That is the meaning of “decision.” The task or project will be done no matter what.
We know that history is full of exciting stories of people who decided to set a goal and achieve it, even if they were the only ones in the world who believed it could be done.
This reminds me of a story of a young salesman who had decided he needed a pre-determined amount of money to meet his end-of-year business goals. Even as the snow fell on Christmas eve, and others had settled in for the holidays, he searched the town looking for additional business. Late that night, he saw a business with a light on, so he entered and spoke to the owner inside, coming away with the money he needed. This young salesman had a laser-focused mentality, and he succeeded.
When you write down a goal, you need to have a plan to execute so that the goal becomes a reality. Write down not only your goals but what you are willing to do to meet them. Focus on not only the destination but have an alternative backup plan that you can fall back on.
Let’s stay with our example of selling products in our business. Determining our monthly sales goals and meeting them can be difficult if we are not taking daily action to achieve them. As the month draws to a close, you may find your sales numbers are not where they need to be.
The question to ask yourself is, how bad do you want it? How focused are you on reaching your monthly or quarterly sales goals?
True sales professionals can make dozens of cold calls a day. However, those who have decided to have X number of sales will do whatever it takes to get them. In this case, they would choose to leave the comfort of their office and go cold call in person. It is far more difficult for a gatekeeper to turn someone away who is standing directly in front of them than it is to dismiss a phone call.
By deciding to make cold calls in person, the salesperson/business owner has made his decision and is now executing his plan. There is no turning back. It is the same as the leader who burns all the ships so that his men must march forward to conquer the enemy.
For better or worse, the salesman/business owner knows he has done everything he can to meet his sales goals at the end of the month.
What happens if you don't meet your monthly goals?
Suppose he didn’t meet his goals, and the numbers for the month have fallen short. Many people, when they fall short on a goal, will immediately give up. They give up focus, and they give up hope believing that the goal was too difficult and therefore cannot be reached.
In this story, our young salesman has a very different mindset. He sits down with a pen and paper and tracks what he did over the past month. He focuses on the number of telephone calls he made and how many appointments he scheduled. He decides how many more calls per day he needs to make next month to reach his goals and begins to measure each outcome so he knows how much closer he is to making his dreams come true. The young salesman has GRIT and DISCIPLINE, and you as a business owner must exhibit GRIT and DISCIPLINE as well.
So as we head into the second half of the year, focus on your goals and then decide, execute, and measure for absolute success.
Here's to great decisions! Keep going and keep growing!
ANNOUNCEMENT:
Watch your email: We are almost through the first half of 2021! What a difference a year makes. I plan on hosting a webinar soon on "The top 4 things to do right now to turn your business around quickly now that Covid restrictions have been lifted." As I begin to prepare for this webinar, I would appreciate it if you would let me know what your biggest challenge is in your business is right now. Feel free to comment on this post or send me an email to doug@dougmattice.com.
