I asked a good friend and very successful one, what New Year’s resolutions she had made for 2013. Her answer: “None, why do it if you’re not going to make them happen and I never do”. That’s one approach that certainly protects your confidence and why set yourself up for failure?

Because the holiday season is the one time of year that we can all take a break, I do tend to reflect and set goals for the New Year. If you set 10 goals and only achieve 3, you are still moving forward. Here are a few tips for effective goal setting that I have either discovered myself or have heard and tried on my journey thus far.

My Top 10

1/ Be realistic with your goal setting. You need to believe they can happen. The ideal scenario doesn’t exist anywhere but your own mind… on a very good day. Scale back your expectations to make progress…baby steps are okay.

2/ Don’t look too far down the road. Most goals are based on changing behaviours and if you give yourself too long of a deadline, you won’t get at it while you’re keen.

3/ Plan the reward now and book the trip or schedule the celebration. You rarely achieve things by accident and celebrating your successes is a good thing.

4/ Implementing change and making it a habit is hard…take it one step at a time. Master one new behaviour and then move on to the next. Start with the one that is either the most important or most achievable, then build on that success.

5/ Let your family know and maybe close friends know but don’t tell it to the world. If it is business goals your setting, your team is your business family and sharing is necessary and energizing for all.

6/ Successful goal setting is all about maintaining the hope, the self belief and the reason you set them as objectives in the first place. Not achieving your goals doesn’t mean they weren’t important. It means they slipped from being a priority or a possibility on a daily basis.

7/ If you’re like me, a lot of times you talk yourself out of changing your unwanted behavior. It’s a confidence thing and positive thoughts are a critical ingredient. If you can talk yourself out of it, you can talk yourself into it.

8/ Don’t make it all about yourself. Think about your friends and family and how achieving these goals might be helpful for them.

9/ Conversely, “you can’t please everyone, so you may as well please yourself”. Just because someone else wants you to change a particular behaviour, isn’t enough nor will it be all that satisfying…chances are that people that are out to change you will just find something else about you to pick on anyway.

10/ It sure feels good to succeed and it’s true that success sets up future success…keeps life interesting!

Lee’s Quote for the Day

“My goal this year is to walk like I’m 4” taller, even though at my age, by the end of the year I’ll probably end up 1” shorter”. 

I haven’t been writing as much lately, for a number of reasons; sold our condo, doing a major house Reno, got a new pup, recorded a full length CD and busier than crap at work. Anyway, I thought I should send one more out for 2012.

It was a good year for us and the industry too. Caution is still King but not as many complaints around…everyone has made the adjustments needed to cope with what seems to be “the new economy”.

The driver crisis hasn’t brought the industry to a standstill yet and somehow the folks at the helm of the various trucking operations will find their way through it. It’s a tough business but one that I have enjoyed supporting, in my small way, for what seems like a lifetime… 2013 is our 25^th year!

There was a record turnout at the recent Toronto Transportation Club dinner and Don Cherry was certainly a factor in the increased attendance. Sports and transportation have always seemed to go hand in hand…a guy thing I guess. Still, more and more ladies are making their mark on the industry and they were well represented at the event.

We added a person in Montreal and it appears to be a tough market to crack for an English company, even though our guy there is French. I’ve spoken with some English carrier customers and they have found it equally difficult. We’re still working on that one.  The reverse scenario appears to be true for our Quebec customers breaking ground in Ontario. If anyone has some tips on that one, they would gratefully be received by all.

We added an account manager in Toronto too, which has been a great help. We had continued to run a bit too lean coming out of the recession. We’ve seen many of our carrier customers start to add bodies as well…a good sign I hope.

We’re adding a young gal in the New Year to help with social media. As mentioned when I spoke at the recent Transportation Summit, Canadian transportation has some catching up to do in this area and we are gearing up to help further with this in 2013.

When I looked over our account list for 2012, I saw many loyal customers that have been with us for decades and something new…a high number of good size accounts that came as a result of our web marketing. The web in 2012 was good news for smaller companies. A shift is occurring, with more and more buyers sourcing on the web. Resource to resource, a 1 million dollar company can get as many opportunities from web marketing as a 200 million dollar company… if they are willing and able to create the same amount of content and use proper search engine optimization.

I’m still amazed when people today, running great companies, don’t put much stock in the power of the web to build their business, help with recruiting, or simply make a favourable impression on customers, suppliers and their carrier partner network. More than ever, it’s not “a” or “b” when it comes to choosing the best way to market, it’s “a, b, c, & d”. That will be our core message for the upcoming year. Add to your relationships and referral business, with the new techniques available…add to, not replace!

Best of the holidays to everyone and we’ll see you in the New Year.

Lee’s quote for the day

“There’s nothing like taking a couple of steps back or maybe sideways, to allow you to see the necessary steps forward.” 

I got into sales when my company started, decided it wasn’t my strength and got out until a few years ago. I read a book called “Truth and Lies in Advertising” and it mentioned the creative director (what I do at my company) needs to be the strongest sales person in the company.

So I made an attempt and had some success. I focus on the business, providing the right solution and that seems to work for the most part. If there’s small talk it tends to be business and industry related, although I do have a growing number of clients that share my interest in music, oddly enough.

So when is a sale a sale? When and how often do you follow up when there are extended periods without communication? When is the horse dead and it’s time to get off? As far as I can tell, these are all gray areas that no one really has the answer to. Trust your instincts and the old sayings “Strike while the fire is hot” and “Patience is a virtue” come to mind as good advice in this regard.

Here are the top 10 sales truths that I rely on:

1. Know and present your value proposition confidently. Be prepared to answer the inevitable question “What makes you better than the other companies providing your service.”
2. Get the customer talking. The more you talk, the less likely you are to find out what the prospective customer really needs.
3. Don’t just take the order. Why? It’s the information age. If you can simply take the order, so can anyone else. By understanding their challenges in greater detail, maybe you can come up with a bigger and better solution.
4. A pro sales coach may teach you to mimic body language and adopt customer speech patterns (talk fast, talk slow etc). I believe today that “Real” wins over this kind of “Slick” every time.
5. The more questions you ask, the smarter you get. If you don’t understand, inquire and find out more. You’ll get the insight needed to be able to accomplish number 2 and 3 above.
6. Follow up when you say you’re going to and after any meeting of significance. Do it while everything is fresh as it is twice as easy to accomplish.
7. Don’t make excuses. Explaining things in detail always weakens your position. Acknowledge and be accountable for any errors and move on.
8. The best way to communicate is still face to face, followed by a phone call and lastly an e-mail or text. It’s harder and harder to get the opportunity for the first two, so be careful with e-mails. Put them through spell check and make sure what you meant to say can’t be misinterpreted.
9. Never try and resolve an issue of any significance by e-mail. I made this mistake just the other day…I don’t think I’ll ever do it again.
10. Referrals are always your best way to increase sales. It’s okay to ask for them from the customers you know best, on occasion.

Lee’s Quote for the Day

If you’re having a hard time selling something, it’s either priced wrong, not a very good product or you’re trying to sell it to the wrong person. Oh yeah, it could be the wrong season, or just a bad day, or lousy timing, or budget cuts, or the price of fuel, or the high Canadian dollar or…