The first quarter of the year is gone, passed, in the books. While that may not seem like a big deal, it has a massive impact on the sales and revenue goals you have set for the year.
If you are ahead of your plan, it means that for the rest of the year you get to make a choice. You can either ride the wave and keep doing what you are doing and smash your goal, or you can take your foot off of the gas, take a breather, and still likely hit your year end goal.
If you are behind plan, you also have a choice, but it isn’t a pleasant one. For choice one, you could throw away your goal, make excuses as to why it will not happen, and give up. The second choice is to honor your goal and work harder the rest of the year to ensure that the goal is met.
We don’t give the first quarter enough credit for our success or failure. When we are working off of a fiscal year, the calendar doesn’t care how much you were going to do each month. If we spread our goal evenly out over every month, and we fall behind, we must spread the loss and add it to our original monthly goal just to be back on track.
This is why people who start a year out with momentum typically hold onto it and the rest tend to suffer all year.
Make the right choice. Honor your goal. Just do the right things - follow your sales process, track your progress, focus on your prospects, step out of your comfort zone - and you will be back on track.
Next year will be different, right?
