Clear Focus Creates Marked Results

Feeling lost is a sickening feeling. Quite frankly, it is worse than the feeling of being stuck. When teams have no direction, no plan, and no clear-cut way to achieve marked results they lose. Repeatedly.

Having a clear focus in your business and having marked results in front of your teams is an absolute must. So why is it so difficult for such a seemingly simple task to be executed?

I revert back to my initial posting about Communication and Consultation to point to the difficulties and fixes for you and your teams when it comes to communication.

Clearly everyone should have some type of goal or KPI system in place. Most, however, are built quickly and without a ton of depth. As well they are not often focused on skills application but purely profitability growth, and track towards who pays the most kickbacks as a supplier—no matter the type of sales or industry you are in this happens frequently.

Let’s change that today.

Sustainability is difficult, keeping your team with clear eyes and full hearts ensures you won’t lose.

Clear Focus

Being a former football player, the show Friday Night Lights that NBC ran back in the mid to late 2000’s was a must watch. The movie Varsity Blues, based on the same book, was ok, but the show was so much better. Outside of the teacher being a stripper and Billy Bob’s “I give it a 10!” scene, not much can be said in comparison of the movie being better than the show in my opinion.

Moving beyond film critiques, Coach Eric Taylor in the television adaptation—played by Kyle Chandler—has a saying he drops that goes “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.” The team repeats, “Can’t lose!”

Clear Eyes indicate a clear-cut vision, an understanding of the task forward. You have a plan, you plan to work, will work the plan then plan to adapt. Full Hearts shows buy in and passion for the task at hand. This represents a clear understanding of the vision and mission, with execution being the final and most glory filled of all tasks.

That leads to Can’t Lose. With a clear vision for your teams and full hearts that are willing to burn the boats to complete the task you simply can’t lose. There will be roadblocks, but that’s when you plan to adapt, and the vision set forth with full understanding and passion for the cause will lead to the marked results that you are seeking from yourself and your teams.

So, to break it all down, have task orientation for yourself and ensure you have a navigable plan. Relay that clearly—over and over with your teams. This should be a weekly evolution at minimum.

Where are we in relation to our goals? What roadblocks have we faced or expecting to face in the short term? How does this impact our daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly goals?

Create a free-flowing environment when it comes to communication and create buy in through relationship management with an understood and attainable vision. Get your marked results.

Marked Results

KPI’s are not rocket science. Anytime acronyms are thrown around it makes things seem of extreme importance and layered with an air of mystery. While KPI’s are vital, they should be simple and clear with a map for attainability for your teams.

This completion of a clear focus from the top down will build marked results. Making goals attainable but also challenging will build your best outcomes for you and your teams.

You want hungry people looking for growth, and you need to understand how every single goal—no matter how small—should contribute to massive growth at some point for the business. No single movement should ever be uselessly spent energy. Insert the compound effect.

When it comes to goal creation, ensure that you put some major homeruns on the goals sheet every term. Make sure these are quarterly, semi-annual or annual. If it is a long-term play, place kickers or triggers inside the short-term goal sheet that builds for your long-term output and results.

You want these to be constantly tracked and updated so that you stay “in the know” when it comes to the traction being built for goal attainment, and your teams need to feel like they are gaining ground on an otherwise seemingly long con. Most sales folks are not long term driven, so keeping the focus is a must.

While everyone should want to achieve lofty goals, you must find and build a roadmap even for those. If you ask for a task, be prepared to provide the vision from start to finish. Otherwise, trust is broken, and communication channels will become hazy.

This isn’t building rockets to Mars, it is simple, daily and manageable tasks that must be done. Take the steps, repeat them, find the compounding results you, your teams, your business and your life need.