The Rule of Five for Effective Goal Setting

Can you think of BIG customer service or sales goals you would really like to achieve as a part of your organization?

What is your ultimate sales goal, or business goal?

Maybe it’s landing that dream client you’ve been pursuing. Perhaps it’s increasing your monthly or annual sales. How about improving your level of customer service by following up with customers? Imagine receiving a promotion? Better yet, what about starting your own business!

Whatever that goal is, you need to put some work into achieving the goal. The interesting part about the work or action required is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be BIG steps, but the steps need to be consistent.

Identifying communication styles is another helpful strategy for achieving sales goals. Read about how to do just that in this post. 

Setting Effective Sales Goals with the Rule of 5

Here’s where the Rule of 5 comes in. I gained this simple, yet effective strategy from Principle #23 in Jack Canfield’s book, “The Success Principles”.  Canfield’s book shares 67 principles that he claims can make people more successful. In 2006, he appeared in The Secret, and shared his insights on the Law of Attraction and offered tips for achieving success in personal and professional life.

If there were five specific things every day that would move you toward your goal, would you do them?

Remember, these specific goals or steps don’t need to be BIG ones.

It could be something as simple as growing your social media accounts by ten percent each month. Do the math and calculate what ten percent represents so progress can be tracked.

For more on customer service, check out this post next: What are First Impressions in Customer Service? 

The following are some simple examples of specific actions steps that can get you to successfully achieve your goal.

1. Interact (i.e. liking, sharing, commenting) on five other pages every day.
2. Follow five new (relevant) pages/accounts every day and always include a personalized note to demonstrate your interest.
3. Read one blog post or article about social media strategy each day and make notes for future reference.
4. Listen to one podcast episode each day about social media strategy, and again, make notes for future reference.
5. Moderate and respond to comments on your social media platform every day, including at least 3 comments on other connections posts.

When it comes to sales goals, let’s say your goal is to connect with new customers on a regular basis. Every business owner or business leader knows a business needs new customers to continue growing. Depending on how many customers you have, one of the steps to achieving this goal could be sending one email each day to a new customer.

Another one of your five steps could be a daily phone call to a new client. You can also ask for one referral per day from existing customers or colleagues. The purpose is to set a specific goal and then decide what give specific steps need to be followed to accomplish the goal.

A few things to keep in mind:

What is your specific goal? What five “specific” things would you do every day to move you towards the sales goal? Remember, the five specific things do not need to be BIG, but they must be consistent.

Food for thought. Could you knock down a tree with one BIG swing from an axe? Not likely! Could you eventually bring down the tree if every day you took five swings at it with a very sharp axe? At some point, no matter how large the tree, it would have to come down. Don’t you agree?

Some of us may have the discipline to go out every day and commit to five swings to improve our sales numbers or service strategy. Others would tire and give up.

According to Canfield, if you want to be successful, you have to take 100% responsibility for everything that you experience in your life. Everything you think, say, and do needs to become intentional and aligned with your highest purpose, your values, and your goals. To achieve desired outcomes, one must replace complaining with making requests and taking action. The only thing that will change your results is to change your behavior.

If you want something bad enough and the goal is BIG, are you willing to apply The Rule of 5 in your business or sales routine to achieve the goal? You noticed the word “consistent” was mentioned several times. Lack of consistency, and giving up too soon, is one of the biggest challenges one faces after setting a goal. A tip is to tell others what your goal is, not necessarily how you might achieve it. Ask others to hold you accountable by checking in regularly for progress updates.

Do you have a burning desire to achieve a particular goal? Have you tried, and given up? If it possible you gave up too soon or did not have something like The Rule of 5 in place?

“You can lose material things, but you can never lose your mastery – what you learn and who you become in the process of achieving your goals.” – Jack Canfield

X5 Management offers several training solutions to help businesses improve communication, teamwork, customer service, sales growth, and leadership development. These can be tailored to meet your specific business needs and facilitated virtually or in-person.