salesmology.com . : uniquely simple sales management

At least that’s what I thought, originally.  What I’ve learned in the past two months (relearned I should say; knew it, forgot it, hard headed - dang it) is that the act of planning is not intuitive and doesn’t come easy.  You have to MAKE YOURSELF or your team members do it.

BUT (big but) once it’s done, high level planning is one of those things that reveals its usefulness first upon completion.  The simple act of pulling thoughts out of your head, organizing them and capturing them on “paper” is very beneficial for a few reasons:

1. you will “feel” more ready to take on the world and will, therefore, actually be able to perform better as your heart will be more in it (emotions and cognition are inseparable), naturally;
2. you will be better equipped to handle change, surprises, the unknown because you will have a roadmap so despite an unexpected turn or pothole your confidence will make you more capable of zigging and zagging;
3. you will be more likely to focus on the critical and will have established for yourself a ‘guardrail’ to ensure you stay on the right path by avoiding wrong turns (hair brained requests, new ideas that lead to a cliff, distractions that seem good at the time but just get you off task in the end…)

Honestly, who the heck wants to get started.  Hardly anybody.  So, recognize that; deal with it and get going.  The alternative is unhealthy work habits: a lack of confidence that you’re even ON a path, much less the right path; zagging when you should have zigged (or just stayed steady straight on down the road); and attacking everything and anything that seems right at the time only to kick up a bunch of dust but actually make no forward progress.

Strategic planning is like medicine - tastes horrible, but sure can be good for you…

 I bet you plan your vacations.