Happy New Year’s Eve! A new year is now only a few hours away. And while you may be thinking about parties and champagne today, tomorrow you’ll be focused on your plans for the new year.
We’ve all had “resolutions” that lasted only a few days. We’ve all set out lofty goals that were impossible to measure. “Sell more insurance” would be one of those! And we’ve all felt disappointed when a year just didn’t live up to our expectations.
But this could be the year where you set goals that actually get DONE. So I though I’d share a crash course in my own goal planning system. Try it and see what you think!
Agency Goal Planning 101
When you’re ready to focus on planning, sit down and write out 10 goals for the new year. When I do this process, I just randomly write down anything that might fit and then refine my list into the 10 I find to be the most important.
Here’s the rules…
- The goal must be a stretch. Don’t write down anything that you already know you can do. If you sell $30k in premium every month, then making that your goal is silly. It needs to pull you to the next level, so aim higher.
- The goal absolutely MUST be measurable! It needs a specific number attached to it. “I will hire two new staff people by June.” “I will make the Agents Inner Circle designation by the end of the year.” “I will take four weeks of vacation throughout the year.”
- Write goals as if they already happened. No “I want to hit $500,000 in life insurance sales.” Write it as if you already did it.
- Think life balance. Everything can’t be about work. Include at least one health goal (run a 5k, lose 15 lbs) and one that is focused on vacation, time off, or a family activity.
Once you feel good about your list, choose one goal to focus on. This is the goal that would fuel more things on your list.
For example….in my “Why Some Insurance Agents Get Rich” seminar, I talked about a very simple formula:
More Quotes = More Sales
So if one of your goals is to hit a certain number of sales this year, then what you really need is to increase your quote volume. Increasing quote volume would lead to more sales, more cross sales, more money, which lets you hire more staff, and then take that vacation time you always dreamed about.
So the initial goal of more quotes leads to crossing MULTIPLE goals off your list.
That’s what you are looking for here. Look at your goal list and figure out what would “light the most fires.” And make that your first focus.
Remember “more quotes” isn’t a goal. 50 quotes per week is!
Break It Down
Now take that first goal and break it down in as many ways as possible. This is just a brain dump of every possible thing you could do to make that goal happen.
If yours was quotes, you could list all of your marketing strategies, prospecting ideas, community outreach, etc. Just go crazy! This list should be several pages long. If it comes to mind, add it to the list.
Once you feel like you’ve got it all on paper, sort it into general categories. I like to use things like “research, first, during, after.” It sorts all of these little items into a general timeline.
Daily To Do List
Now it gets easy. Every single day, just choose 2-3 items from this list and do them. It could be as easy as sending an email or making a call. Having a meeting with a team member or testing a new script. Just make sure that a couple of items from the list are done first and foremost every day.
Using this strategy, you’ll see things happening every single day! That progress will fuel you to take action even faster. And next thing you know? That first big goal will be DONE! And then you most on to the next.
Now it’s time to put it in action. Find some time this week to start making your goal list. And this time, get ready to see some amazing results!
Best wishes for a prosperous year!
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