Two things are true about goals:

1. You wont generally get bigger results without setting a bigger goal.
2. If you set a goal too high (too much of a stretch) it can lead to worse results, not better.

The Impact of Small Goals

If you set a small goal, you will get small results. Some people, and at sometimes, it’s important for success to set a small goal, like if you need to build momentum (for example, if you don’t normally work out…your initial goal should be to put on your workout shoes and go to the gym. You don’t even need to work out on day 1 – just go. You can add time tomorrow).

If you set a bigger goal, you will get bigger results, even if you miss the goal. As they say, if you aim for the stars and miss, you will still hit the moon.

But there are also times where you can set a big, huge, monster goal (or as Jim Collins refers to it – BHAG – Big Hairy Audacious Goal) and it actually sets you backwards. If you don’t put in monster effort for a monster goal you could potentially feel worse about yourself.

Effort Matters for Big Goals

Gary V says it all the time – if you set a goal of making a million dollars, are you prepared to do the amount of work/effort it takes? (80–120-hour weeks, all in focus).

Grant Cardon (who I generally dislike for his sales style and what he teaches salespeople to do and how to put pressure on people) wrote a great book about goals – The 10X Rule. In it, he says set a 10x goal (go big!) but then you must put in 10x effort.

You won’t get a big goal by doing whatever level of effort you are currently doing.

Setting Goals and Compensation Plans for Your Team

This article is about goal setting and compensation plans for your team. So what difficulty, stretch level should you set each of those?

Many owners and leaders want to just go big. They know what they want the team to produce, what they need for the company to succeed, for themselves to get where they want. So, let’s set big goals and raise the bar on the comp plan, right?

The problem with that is that if most of your people cannot hit the goal – it will cause negative morale issues. Humans don’t like to lose. Salespeople are there for the additional compensation that comes with selling more and being more effective. If they can’t hit the goals and make money, they will leave (after causing an uprising with the rest of the team).

If you set the bar too low, so that everyone can win (i.e., feel good about themselves), there is a chance they will hit a low goal and stop once they have won the game you put in front of them.

Both scenarios won’t help the team and company. What is the right level?

Supporting Your Team's Success

The answer lies in what I mentioned earlier – what is the level of effort that you are going to support your team with?

• How much guidance are you going to give?
• What amount of sales coaching and training?
• Do you have enough resources in-house, or do you need to bring in additional coaching and training resources?
• What level of marketing/leads will it take to achieve the goal you want to hit?

Again, you can’t get bigger results by doing the same thing you are doing now.

If the volume of leads is “okay” to hit current goals, you aren’t really doing much coaching and training, your front-line managers are stuck in admin hell instead of supporting the team – and you don’t change anything but move the target – you will lose.

That is called insanity (doing the same thing…or nothing…and expecting different results). I have seen so many companies and leaders do this same thing.

A Common Scenario to Avoid

Leadership: “Hey Team – we are setting a big goal for this month/quarter! Let’s go close some deals!”

Team: “Are we getting more leads?”

Leadership: “No…you have a good pipeline, let’s focus on closing what we have and doing our follow ups.”

Team: “Can we get some help – training and coaching?”

Leadership: “Sure, we can see what we can find for you. Maybe an online course you can take, or we could do a book club, or a monthly meeting. We might even run a contest. That should help. But we already know you are great at closing deals – so let’s just do what we do best.”

In that scenario – give it about 3 months before everyone good quits (and the bad salespeople ride out the base pay until you fire them).

Conclusion

Set your goals and your compensation plan based on the support you are willing to provide and the effort you and the team are willing to commit to.

Play a big game with big effort, commitment, and discipline = get big results. Play a safe game but wish for big results = formula for completely losing.