t’s that time of year again. All of the prior year’s successes, failures, wins, and losses are all wiped to zero. All reset, everybody starts anew. Yet this upcoming year, like the last, and the countless years before them will see untold numbers of sales reps begin the journey of hitting their goals all to come up short. Year after year we see this cycle, year after year businesses seem surprised, and year after year we start the same way – behind goal.
Why is this still a surprise? Why do we see the bell curve of rep performance year after year benevolently provide to some reps on the top and malevolently take away from the reps who will inevitably turn over? The bigger question might be what do we do about it?
Simple: Don’t try to hit your goals.
Hitting your goals isn’t the problem, the mindset behind it is. Setting up a plan to hit your goals doesn’t take into account all the ebbs and flows of the year. It misses all the small obstacles that can arise over 220 selling days in a year (assuming you take PTO. I’ve heard that’s lovely). Small obstacles over a year end up in a big miss, and alas goals are missed.
A mindset of hitting goals inevitably falls short, so let’s try something different.
To get it out of the way, just slapping 10% more to your goals (or your team’s goals) isn’t the solution. That’s lazy. Don’t just do that and assume it’ll work.
While there are many ways to have the right mindset to not hit your goals, here are a few ways I’ve used this process in my own career. Take from it what you will: change it, adjust it for you, make it your own. Just because it worked for me doesn’t mean you can cut and paste, but hopefully it’ll give you a good idea of how to approach the new year’s goals with a mindset to achieve.
Competition
Early in my career I sold personal training to members at Planet Fitness. My goals weren’t horrible challenging, and if I focused on them it would have been “fine”. However, the problem was twofold. First, if I hit my goals I wasn’t making much money. That’s not only my problem but the problem of my landlord and utilities companies. Next, I was nowhere near the top of the sales list. That, to me, was the bigger problem that drove me nuts. I hated the feeling of being down that list, and it was that very moment that I realized I didn’t care about my company given goals anymore. I wanted to be the top of that list. Not only that, I wanted to sell twice as much as the next person on that list. Did I do that every month? No. Did I do that often? Oh yeah. I did just about everything possible to be better at my job. I’d set more appointments, I’d listen to sales trainings every day on the way in and out of work, I read books on sales nonstop, I listened to others and took pearls of wisdom from them. I made it my focus to achieve that target.
One particular day was the accumulation of that process. It was the last day of the month and I had 11 appointments. The first one at 6am and the last at 8pm which was actually two friends who wanted to explore personal training together. That night I ended up closing 7 of those meetings, made about $10,000 of commission, and had one of my favorite closes of all time with those friends: “I’m sorry but I’m losing my voice and only have a few words left. You should get your checkbook out of your car and we can get your paperwork finished before I lose it completely.” Sure enough they both signed up and I lost my voice for the weekend.
If I hadn’t worked my process of doing everything possible to double the number two rep I wouldn’t have had that day. That one day was the equivalent to about 3 months worth of target (at goal) and about that much of my projected income if I was just hitting goals. Instead, that was one night and one of my favorite memories from work in my last 30 years of employment. That last sentence tells me I need a baby asprin and should stretch.
Collaboration
A few years ago during a budgeting process the board had slipped in a 30% revenue increase on my department without any conversation or approval. We had previously experienced 30% year over year growth like clockwork, but now we were expected to do that in a quarter. That quarter was coming, and this was not small task with such a mature sales team.
Instead of crossing my fingers and hoping, micromanaging the team, or being overbearing I brought all the sales leaders and program CEO into a breakout meeting. The sales leaders and I didn’t just look for 30% growth. I asked them for 50%. We poured over every account, every prospect, every rep. We looked into conversion opportunities, needs to meet these goals, and essentially areas where we could squeeze every drop of blood from the stone. Once done, we brough the plan to the CEO to get the support we needed and developed a communication/support plan for the team. No yelling, no pressure, no micromanaging. Just shared vision, clearly communicated plan, and lots of support for the team.
Did we hit the target? In the words of my Midwestern friends “you betcha”. Was it easy? Of course not, but because we were collaborative, meticulous, and supportive we were able to move that mountain for the organization.
The only sad ending to that story is the board now thought we could increase revenue 30% in a month. Needless to say, that’s an amazing way to lose good leaders. Don’t be greedy.
Condensation
Finally, there is one mindset I’ve always lived by as a sales rep and has carried on through into sales leadership and now business ownership. I want to condense my year. I strive to hit my annual target by a certain date – usually end of September or October. This, in my opinion, is the biggest recipe for success when done right.
Why is this so important? Well, once you’re at annual goal you’re able to invest your time differently. Investing time after hitting goal can now include what are often considered luxury actions in many organizations or for many reps. This can include working to close very large accounts that you normally don’t have the bandwidth to invest time in, exploring new vertical markets that you feel can be good sources of revenue but otherwise aren’t your core business, having time to train yourself or team, cleaning up your CRM so you have good data going into the next year, or working on accounts that will close in Q1 of the following year so you start out strong.
Essentially, with this mindset you’re playing with house money. You’ve already hit target and you’re able to navigate your time in a way that sets you up for ongoing success. All that takes is a strong plan for the condensed timeframe and the will to put in the work to get it done.
As I write this people are beginning to fill into Times Square, NY, some countries are all ready in the new year, and millions of sales reps are about to wake up tomorrow back at zero. Millions of sales reps (and companies) will roll into next week already projecting behind goal for the year – some with a plan, some not so much. Yet, if you’ve read this far you know that you don’t have to be in the same position in 365 days. There’s a way to change your mindset and approach to goals now where this will be your best year yet that’s also setting you up for a strong 2027. These examples are just a few ways to get there, and I hope they help you have the year you’re striving for. There are also many other ways of reframing your thoughts to achieve the same thing. Either way, if you want to crush it in 2026 don’t try to hit your goals.
