The Greatest

Kanye West proclaimed that he wanted to be the greatest artist of all time. When hearing the quote, I thought it ridiculous. That seems to be a general reaction. When a person says they want to do something extraordinary, we tend to roll our eyes and denounce their motivation. It may be certain that Kanye will not be the greatest artist of all time (I'm not even sure what he meant by the statement ~ and he may not be either). But we cannot denounce the man for having lofty goals!

2013 is upon us. It's time to plan for the future. So, here is a challenge.....

Set Ridiculous Goals
On January 1, our company continues a journey to nearly double our annual revenue! We will get there, because we can! If you are bold in your planning and you believe in your ability; greatness is inevitable!

As you map out 2013, don't plan to hit your quota, plan to double it. Don't plan to hire 20 new people, plan to hire 100. Don't plan to improve project efficiency by 10%, plan to crush it by 50%. Because You Can!

Be Inventive
Don't email me the same content once a week (for an entire year). If I don't need what you are selling repeating the same process will not convince me otherwise. Mix in a phone call, write a compelling blog entry, send me links to things that matter to me via social media, mail me a letter. There are a thousand ways to engage your audience these days. If you can't catch me on one street, try another....and be creative for goodness sake! If you are working hard doing uninformative work, you are wasting your time.

Never Give Up!
I was discussing the holiday lull with a friend of mine. We talked about certain decision makers being unavailable during certain stretches of the year. We then concluded that we were kidding ourselves. We can always make excuses for our lack of productivity.

You are in charge of your professional destiny! If you cannot achieve something the way it has worked in the past, try 10 different ways to get it done. If you don't have enough time in the day, wake up and hour earlier...stay up an hour later. If you don't have the tools to succeed, invent them. If someone does not want to talk to you, create a value proposition that they cannot ignore. Stop making excuses and make it work!

So, write down your goals for 2013...and then double them. If you only achieve 75% of your goal, that is a 25% increase in what you thought was possible.

Be  bold, set seemingly unattainable goals, redefine the standard.....become the greatest of all time! Because You Can!

Don't Forget to Remember!

Dave