Goal Setting Mastery (Part 2 - Envisioning Your Destination)

Summary

The Advanced Selling Podcast: Goal Setting Mastery (Part 2 - Envisioning Your Destination)

Hosts: Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale
Release Date: November 11, 2024
Episode Title: Goal Setting Mastery (Part 2 - Envisioning Your Destination)

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of The Advanced Selling Podcast, hosts Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale delve into the second part of their three-part series on goal setting, focusing on "Envisioning Your Destination." Building upon the foundation laid in the previous episode, they emphasize the critical importance of defining clear, vivid goals to steer one's professional and personal life towards success.

The Importance of Vivid Goal Setting

Bill and Bryan kick off the discussion by highlighting a common oversight among professionals: the lack of detailed goal setting. Bill states at [04:38], “I just don't think we spend enough time thinking about destinations and where we're going.” They draw an analogy to planning a trip, where one would typically set a clear destination rather than aimlessly driving without purpose.

Notable Quote:
"You don't even have to worry about how you're going to get there. Or I want to go from having, you know, 75 small clients to five mid to large clients. That could be a destination." – Bill Caskey [05:05]

Creating a Vivid Vision

The hosts stress the necessity of making goals vivid and specific. Bryan elaborates at [06:09], “Vivid is the word of the day.” They argue that specific goals, laden with numbers and clear outcomes, are more motivating and achievable. For instance, instead of a vague aim to "increase income," setting a goal to "increase annual revenue from $50k to $250k over the next three years" provides a clear target to strive for.

Notable Quote:
"The vividness of that imagination and creativity when it comes to crafting the destination is going to lead right into how do you get there?" – Bill Caskey [05:15]

Overcoming the Fear of Commitment

Bill and Bryan discuss the psychological barriers that prevent individuals from setting vivid goals. They identify fears such as commitment and failure as significant obstacles. Bryan mentions at [10:24], “If I put down that I want to... I might be scared of that,” highlighting how fear can impede the process of setting ambitious goals. They encourage listeners to view goal setting as an aspirational exercise rather than a definitive measure of success or failure.

Notable Quote:
"These are aspirational things. Do this from the quiet of your home or your room." – Bill Caskey [07:21]

Visualizing Success

Visualization plays a pivotal role in achieving goals. The hosts advocate for creating visual representations of desired outcomes, such as detailed calendars or income projections. Bill suggests that seeing a colorful, specific plan makes the goals more tangible and less intimidating. He advises listeners to go beyond simple lists and engage with their goals visually to better internalize and work towards them.

Notable Quote:
"Our brains treat visuals much differently than we treat just copy on a page. And so don't be afraid to say, you know what, whether it's a vision board... it's like, no, I want to see where I'm going." – Bill Caskey [13:05]

Practical Steps for Vivid Goal Setting

To assist listeners in setting vivid goals, Bill and Bryan offer practical steps:

1. Detail Your Goals: Specify exact numbers, timelines, and desired outcomes. For example, “I plan to purchase a Lamborghini by December 2025, putting $50k down.”

2. Visual Tools: Utilize visual aids like detailed calendars or income projections to represent how you will achieve these goals without overwhelming yourself.

3. Personal Reflection: Engage in personal exercises, such as writing in a binder or journal, to articulate and visualize your goals clearly and personally.

4. Avoid External Pressures: Emphasize that goal setting is a personal journey. Avoid letting external expectations dictate your aspirations.

Notable Quote:
"Just start writing. What do I want my business or personal life to look like in the next three to five years and just start writing." – Bill Caskey [16:07]

Encouraging Personal Accountability

The hosts underline the importance of personal accountability in goal setting. They caution against top-down goal assignments, where managers impose targets without considering individual capabilities and aspirations. Instead, they advocate for self-directed goal setting, where each individual envisions and commits to their own objectives, thereby increasing the likelihood of achieving them.

Notable Quote:
"It's a personal exercise. It's between you and you." – Bryan Neale [15:17]

Conclusion and Call to Action

Wrapping up the episode, Bill encourages listeners to dedicate time to envision their future, suggesting practical tools like binders for documentation. He also promotes their Advanced Selling Podcast Insider Program, which offers further resources and a business planning session slated for early December.

Notable Quote:
"Go be vivid. And if you haven't already signed up and enrolled in the advanced selling podcast.com insider program, we're doing a business planning session on December the sixth." – Bill Caskey [16:34]

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Key Takeaways:

• Specificity Matters: Vivid, detailed goals are more effective than vague aspirations.
• Visualization Facilitates Success: Creating visual representations of goals helps in internalizing and achieving them.
• Personal Commitment is Crucial: Goals should be self-defined to ensure personal investment and accountability.
• Overcome Psychological Barriers: Address fears of commitment and failure to set and pursue ambitious goals.

By emphasizing the creation of vivid, specific goals and providing actionable steps to achieve them, Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale equip sales professionals with the tools necessary to navigate their career paths successfully.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome back to the event selling podcast. The longest running sales journey podcast podcast history. I'm Bill Caskey.

[B]

Brian Neal here we are.

[A]

Always pleased to be with you. We might have missed a week or two in October. You have a busy schedule. I did too. We just. Plus one time we tried to connect and I sent you the link and you didn't get it. It was a. It was, you know, I don't know what happened, but communication problems. So if we, if you missed us for a couple weeks in October, we're back, we're back.

[B]

It would be a long stretch, you know, whatever. 17, 18 years next month, I think.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Or like tomorrow. Like. Yeah, something like that. Oh yeah, it happens. So the funny part was last time not or not funny that I was on another stream yard link and Bill was on another one. We're both waiting for each other and neither of us texted each other like.

[A]

Where are you getting. Getting irritated with each other, like, what the deal?

[B]

Let's see. So we're continuing our three part series. Last time we did the where you are assessment thing. Today we're going to talk future or.

[A]

As we say in Indiana.

[B]

Where you at? Where, where are y'all? Where are y'all going?

[A]

Where y'all at? Okay.

[B]

Where's Kenny? Where's Kenny? Everybody in Indiana has an Uncle Kenny and an Uncle Bob. I found that out too.

[A]

Uncle Bob's are huge.

[B]

Uncle Bob's or everybody's got an Uncle Bob. I had two. One's passed, one's still here. Now we're gonna talk about where you're going in episode two here, which would be really, really good going. I went already to one of my football games in Nashville a few weeks ago and I was having dinner at the hotel. This is very quiet. You know, Broadway street in Nashville, I mean it's, it's out of hand. I mean it's just way too crowded for me and I usually don't really mind crowds. It's just, you know, at games we were very chill. At night before games, I'm just by myself at this restaurant and very, very nice server.

[A]

By myself walking up and down Broadway.

[B]

In the hotel where we stay, I didn't just down into the lobby, but I had a surfer who was. And he wasn't. He was I think from another country. Be my guest. You know, based on this very, very sweet guy. But he would look at me and I don't know if he was like translating in his mind, but he looked at me every time I ordered something. Like I had three heads Like. Like, kind of like, what are you doing? And then so I said, could I get some bread, please? Then he looks at me, not smiling or anything. He goes, you would like me to bring you some bread in a basket with some butter?

[A]

And I'm like, oh, my God.

[B]

He goes, okay. And everything I did was that. Even at the end, I said, I go, excuse me, can I get a tea to go? Tea to Iced tea to go? He goes, you would like me to put some tea in a glass for you? I was like, yes, that would be great. Was really, really nice. But I was like. I'm like, what are we doing here, man? Let's, like, speed.

[A]

I thought. I thought you were going to say, can you bring me my check? And when you do, make sure it's in a leather container with a Mount Blanc pen with it.

[B]

I was not that high maintenance. Oh, geez. I didn't know what to do because I'm like, yeah. Like, yeah.

[A]

It was almost like a training. That sounds like he's been trained to do that versus language. That doesn't sound like a language.

[B]

I don't know. But it was a very.

[A]

That's uncomfortable.

[B]

It's a little clunky. Clunky process. He was great. He was a great server. Really great. Wasn't that. It was just this sort of like repeating, almost repeating back, like, you really want me to bring you. You're gonna read.

[A]

Doubting the request.

[B]

That's what it was. It was like I was being, like, you know, judged for my.

[A]

Exactly. Exactly. Really?

[B]

You're gonna get some tea to go? Are you serious? Like, yeah, yeah.

[A]

There's two things about. I don't know. We call them wave attendance or whatever servers that bug me. Number one is the we thing. What are we having tonight? Come on. And the other. The other thing I think I've talked about it is when they. They bring their food. They bring your food, and then they check back. I'm gonna check back in a minute. Okay, great. I'm sure you will. And two minutes later. Is this the best food ever?

[B]

Totally.

[A]

Well, first off, I had one bite. I haven't. I haven't gotten sick, so it passes that test.

[B]

Is everything tasting fantastic?

[A]

Exactly. Exactly.

[B]

Not really.

[A]

How are we enjoying the fantastic food? Well, first off, we are not.

[B]

Oh, they're doing the best they can. Okay. Let's go where we're going.

[A]

All right.

[B]

What do you think? Let's. I'll ask you the question. Why is this important, Bill, for us, in this period of time, of the year to Start to sit down and put pen to paper on.

[A]

That's good. Well, I will start with where you started, which was, if you haven't listened to last week's episode, go back and give it a spin. Because really basing your current reality, getting foundationally set in that I think helps you to decide where you're going. So it's all part of the same wheel, Wheel of fortune. But I think in terms of why it's important is I just don't think we spend enough time thinking about destinations and where we're going. You know, I know you've heard that, you know, you're taking a trip and you would never start out and say, okay, we're just going to drive for 74 hours and see where it takes us. You'd say, no, we're going, going to, you know, Colorado. We're going to the mountains, Rocky Mountains, whatever. We would have at least directionally a destination and then we would build the. The path to get there from the destination. So in the third episode, we're going to talk about how. What's the bridge from current reality to future? Well, you got to have a vivid future. You got to at least say, directionally, I'd like to go from 50 grand a year to 250 a year over the next three years. You don't even have to worry about how you're going to get there. Or I want to go from having, you know, 75 small clients to five mid to large clients. That could be a destination. But I think the vividness of that imagination and creativity when it comes to crafting the destination is going to lead right into how do you get there?

[B]

Yes, that is a great word. Vivid is the word of the day with. With the eyes. We're leaving the eyes in. We are going to do consonants or vowels, rather. Sorry, screwed that up.

[A]

Well, in that case, if you could find an acronym that was vvd, I think it would still be vivid.

[B]

It'd be perfect. It would be so that that's. And that's where I see a people that I work with. And I don't know. I have a question about this just in general, because this is a very natural thing for me. I just am very natural at this. It's easy. My. And then my, like, literally my football coaches taught me to do this date stamp things. It's just a thing. A lot of people I work with, even if I tee it up until it really struggle, it's a thing, you know, like, you just can't get to that level of Specificity.

[A]

It's a commitment, though, and I think shy from commitments. And it's like, go. Go up to somebody that you meet that you've known for a while, maybe haven't seen. What do you want for yourself in the next five years? And they will. They will look at you the way the waiter did, the way the surfer did when you asked for bread without the basket. No, just throw me some bread. You don't even need a basket. Just pitch it to me.

[B]

Just feed it to me.

[A]

But sometimes people don't know how to answer that question. And so as a coach, and I know that, and you know that because we asked that question as well. Well, tell me, what. What are the next couple years look like for you? Well, I don't know. I'd kind of like to get out of my current position, like to find something or make a little bit more money. And I feel like, well, that's not vivid. That's too general, too vague. And so part of this exercise for us today is get vivid about where do you want to go? It doesn't have to be in the next 90 days or the next year, but then, you know, the next three or four or five years. What do you want your income to be? What do you want your. Where do you want your business to be coming from? What role do you want to play in the organization? Maybe you don't want to be in sales forever. Maybe you want to graduate to a VP or a sales manager. So don't worry about anybody judging you here. Do this from the quiet of your home or your room. In my room, yeah.

[B]

What a great song. First concert. Beach Boys.

[A]

Beach Boys. First concert.

[B]

First concert ever. 1980 or 81? One of the two. I gotta look it up. It was in Pittsburgh. First concert ever in my room is my second favorite Beach Boy song, too.

[A]

Let me guess. Your first one. Good Vibration?

[B]

No.

[A]

Surfer Girl.

[B]

Pet Sounds. Not the. From the album.

[A]

I don't know. I don't know the albums like that. What's it. What's it called?

[B]

Hang on, let's see if I can find it. Oh, what is it called?

[A]

Your favorite song. You don't know the name of it?

[B]

Beach Boy song. I might have one of those little. Little times.

[A]

Little dementia.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

In my room.

[B]

God only knows. God.

[A]

Oh, that's good.

[B]

Without you.

[A]

That's a good song.

[B]

Isn't that great? God only knows a great song.

[A]

Some of the interviews with Mike. Was it Michael? Who's the. Brian Wilson.

[B]

Brian Wilson and about how.

[A]

And he was one of the Founding members, I think.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And Good Vibrations. He was. He was in the throes of his, you know, some of the mental stuff that he had going on. And they said he was impossible. Every. Every note had to be perfect or he'd say, up. Now we gotta start over. Could work for weeks and months on just this one song. And so when you listen to that song called Good Vibrations today, it's a perfect song. I mean, it's just.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And if. When. You know, that backstory kind of makes you appreciate it more. Okay. Anyway, so why we're here? Why are we.

[B]

Vivid, Vivid. Vivid. Vivid is the word. Now, I will say. And this just hit me. I've been thinking about this for years. It just hit me a different way, this fear. So why is this hard for people sometimes, like you said, Bill, it might be a fear of commitment or then a fear of failure. If I put down that I want to my, you know, to have my territory produce, you know, $4 million in revenue, and I've only ever done three, I might be scared of that. So I love. This is a personal exercise. This is in your notebook. You to you.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And it's aspirational. It's not, you know, you're not a failure if you don't get it, because if you put 4 and get 3, 9, 9, 5, you technically fail. Technically. But good gosh, you stretch yourself so far. So get vivid dates and numbers. It's got to be an American there. I just firmly believe that.

[A]

I agree. And play. Play the game. I mean, don't, you know, it's easy to judge. It's easy to judge others. Really easy to judge ourselves. And we say, well, you know what we did? We did, you know, $500,000 last year in this product. There's no reason that thing shouldn't be 2.5 million. Okay, we'll write down 2.5 million. We'll work next week on how to get there. Start to get familiar and comfortable with that number so that every time you look at it, it doesn't shock you like it does the first time you wrote it down. Because at some point you're going to say, I go from 500,000 to 2.5. Yeah, right. And then you write it down again and again. It's like, oh, no, I'm going to go from 5.5 to. You start to get more comfortable. It becomes more vivid for you.

[B]

That's good. The other thing I'd add, we're going to say vivid on the theme is I would also have you plan or think about in the, in the next year, three years, whatever stretch of time you want to use here. The. You mentioned earlier, Bill, the role that you're in and. Or what your calendar will look like. I think that's important to put down on a piece of paper what your calendar is going to look like. And by that I mean, I just went through this. It's taken me almost two and a half years to get our business navigated to a place where I'm like, uncomfortable about how much space I have on my calendar. Because we've moved the business to a place where it's like, it's very scaled now and we've got coaches doing work and it's uncomfortable. And I'm like examining that, going, man. But that's what I wrote down. I wanted to be, I wanted to have my delivery down. And I had a number, a weekly number. And it was like, in policy, would have been like, I would have taken off 75% of my delivery time. It took two years to do it. So. So if you're looking there, going, well, I go to the meetings, you know.

[A]

What does your life look like from a calendar standpoint in the future?

[B]

That's it.

[A]

And because it's too easy to say, well, I'm going to triple my business, therefore I'm going to triple my workload. But if you have a calendar that says, oh no, I'm going to have my workload and triple my business, there's a way to do that, but without the vividness of seeing the calendar the way you want it, I think it becomes less vivid.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I love that.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You know, all these things are visuals in a way. The calendar is a visual representation of how you spend your time. Your W2 or W9, W2 is a visual representation of your income. And don't be afraid. Instead of just doing a line list on a Google Doc, create a visual around it. Because our brains treat visuals much differently than we treat just copy on a page. And so don't, don't be afraid to say, you know what, whether it's a vision board. I know that was big for a while, but I think it served a purpose. It's like, no, I want to see where I'm going.

[B]

Yes. So that I think different than a vision board. That was great to go take People magazine and cut out a Lamborghini and slap wall. That's fine. Better to me is to say, yeah, I plan to purchase. I don't know what the models of Lamborghinis are, but I Plan to purchase a Lamborghini between December 1, December 15 of 2025, drive from the income that I'm going to make, you know, and I'm going to put 50 down. Be very specific with that. Then who cares if it happens or not? That's the thing. These are aspirational things.

[A]

No, it's right. And you want to raise the odds of it happening. I mean, you wouldn't put these down if you didn't have some interest in having them happen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Then what are things that raise the odds? Well, if one thing that raises the odds is being able to vividly imagine you in possession of the. Whatever the Lamborghini is, that's one thing. We don't think about that, though. I mean, you know, think about when we plan corporate planning. Everybody sits around your territory, you know, Brian, what are you going to do next year? You did 1.5 million. Can you get that to 2 million? Yes, sir, boss, I can get that to 2 million. What about 2.5? Oh, I don't know about that. Let's put 2.5 down. Come on, let's just put 2.5 down. And really, the next. Okay, we got 2.5. The next step should be. Let's spend some time visualizing what your life will look like if you do 2.5 million and make 500,000. Let's spend some time visualizing that. How often is that done? Maybe in Google and Apple, but not in most companies. We just go to, well, what do you need to do? What's going to happen? What's going to change? Where are you going to get that 2.5? What customers? You don't even know that. It's like, whoa, hang on. All right.

[B]

Gotta be a personal exercise.

[A]

I'm on a.

[B]

We gotta be a personal exercise. No, but it's. You're right, because it gets, it gets given to us. It gets, you know, get knighted with a. With a goal, with a commission. And then I, I also think there's a big group of people. If you've got a sales team of 50 salespeople, sellers, and you do this top down. We're talking to the managers now, by the way. Top down. Okay, Bill, your. Your job is 5 million. You know, Brian, your job is 4 million. You're going to limit someone based on the job, but based on the number that you put on them. In other words, If I put 5 million on bill, Bill, in his own mind, is capable of seven. But if I put five million, he's going to go to five and not Stop. He's not going to like quit, you know, but we, it's. You gotta be. It's a personal exercise, this planning, vivid imagery, very specific. What I'm going to get is a very personal. It's between you and you. That's how we think about it.

[A]

That's so true. Well, this is good. So that's what you should do is spend a little time over the next week or so in a room, in a quiet, you know, it doesn't have to be in a, in a bedroom or something. It could be at Starbucks. But buy a little ten dollar binder and just start writing. Just start writing. What, what do I want my business or personal life to look like in the next three to five years and just start writing? It's not necessarily a bucket list, but in a way it is. It's like start with the list, then you can always go back and cross off in a race.

[B]

Yes, yes. And just don't put pressure on yourself. It's an aspirational call for you to get. Don't worry about. It's like, well, if I'm going to fail, if I, you know, don't achieve it, that's not what this is at all. So. Okay, go be vivid.

[A]

Yep. Go be vivid. And if you haven't already signed up and enrolled in the advanced selling podcast.cominsider program, we're doing a business planning session on December the. I think it's the sixth, but it's the first week in December, so make sure you enroll. That program is going to be open to the public, but it's going to be a lot higher price. But if, if you're in Insider, you will get it for the low monthly fee of whatever that is at that time. So anyway, make sure you go there.

[B]

All right, see you next time.

[A]

All right, see you. Bye.