Conviction is Essential to Set and Achieve Goals with Chet Lovegren

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Welcome to the live Better Sell Better podcast with your host, Kevin Dorsey of Inside Sales Excellence, the number one Patreon group and YouTube channel for tech sellers and tech sales leaders, where we dive in deep for tactical advice on how to book more meetings, close more deals faster, and lead sales teams to success. But we don't stop there. We also focus on the person in salesperson. We talk about mindset goals, time management, and so much more. So thank you for listening and if you're interested, head on over to patreon.com InsideSalesExCexcellence now with that, grab a notepad, get ready, and let's dive into the good stuff. What up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the live Better Sell Better podcast. This is your host, Kevin Dorsey, AKA kd. And today we're going to be talking about good to great. In fact, we're going to be talking about good to extraordinary, maybe even good to superb. And if I could think of one more word, I would. But at the end of the day, everyone wants to be great. But the greats do things differently. And that is what we are focusing the topic on today is what is it the greats do differently? How do they speak differently, plan differently, act differently, take care of themselves differently? They. That leads to greatness. Which is why I'm so excited to have Chet Lovgren on the show today, AKA the sales doctor. He's leading the sales dev. Org over at Jelly Smack. You've seen him all over LinkedIn for sure. But we're gonna talk about what it takes to be great. What do you have to do in order to cross that threshold between good, great and amazing? And we're gonna dive in here. Chet, my man, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Katie. Stoked to be here. This is a topic that I'm pretty passionate about and so excited to have a conversation.

That's what I love. And what I love about it is we're actually going to talk how to do it because as you know, you're on LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn. There's always all this, like, fodder, right? There's always this like, oh, like, you know, believe in yourself or be more disciplined or be self confident, right? And we always talk about these states of being without talking about, well, what does it mean to do that, right? So when you talk about good to great, what's the difference? Let's even start there. What's the difference between being good at something and. And being great at something?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think I Take it back to the old Jerry Rice quote. I'm gonna do what others won't, so I can accomplish what others can't. So when you look at your cohorts, when you look at the people around you, even when you look up to, you know, three years ago, there were some people that I looked up to that I think in my career I've surpassed them, you know, to where I'm at now. Going from individual contributor to manager to director to now head of my department that I'm at. Right? And so I think that's a big measurement, right? And people talk about, oh, don't compare yourself to others. But hey, if you're in sales, what are you seeing on the leaderboard every week? The end of the month, you're seeing where you're at in relation to everybody else. And yeah, it's important to set your own goals and achieve those goals and surpass those goals, whether that's 100%, 150%, 200%, whatever it might be. But what's that there for? To compare and to contrast and to show you where you align and what you're doing with others. And especially, right. As a sales leader, you probably know, like, if you have a REP that's doing 120% of quota, you want to kind of go find out what that rep is doing so you can share that with the people that are under 70% of quota and then see where the differences are. Or else you're going to go crazy, right? It's just madness for the sake of madness. There's no method to it, right? You take that data and you let that make your decisions and guide you on your path to figuring out what you should be looking at, why it's important, and then showing that story to others. So I think there is a level of comparison and contrasting that needs to happen between people around you or even people that you look up to, to where you can go, hey, this is where I was, this is where I am, or this is where they're at. What am I doing differently or what are they doing differently and how do I get there?

And I think that's what's interesting about it is like, there's the comparison game, but even comparison can be subjective, right? You can, you can manipulate numbers, you can manipulate like all the different things, right? You can manipulate titles, right. I know people that are SVP's that are nothing more than a manager. I know manager that should be a vp. Like the title is its own thing to manipulate too. But when I Think about greatness. I think about modeling, meaning being good at something. You're good at it. Greatness means other people should model themselves off of what you do, right? Because it's not about, like, the title. It's not about the number. It's what you do, right? If you're great at something, you're doing something different. Whereas if you're not, if you're doing the same as everybody else but your results are better, it means there's a different opportunity or the environment is different.

Right?

And we got to address those things. And so let's break down some of these. I don't know if it's outside the box, but, like, some of the foundational things that you have seen that you believe lead to greatness, right? Because if it was as simple as just telling people to be great, everyone would be great. You got to change something to be great. So what are the things you've noticed about, like, the differences between people who are good and people who are great? But let's narrow it down to behaviors, not characteristics.

Okay? So I think in terms of behaviors and mindset, just to lay out the context, I think people that are good and people that are great, the difference is the people that are good have a focus on being perfect. And, you know, they say perfect is the enemy of good. I take it a step further and say perfect is the enemy of great. Because I'm not trying to be good, I'm trying to be great, right? So I think you have to stop putting a focus on being perfect. As you called out, there's a lot of thought leaders and a lot of gurus on the perfect cold call, the perfect email. This is what you should be doing, but not enough how, right. Not enough insight and instruction. So I think a big part of it is eliminating that thought that I have to be perfect. I'm just trying to get better, right? That's ultimately one of the key characteristics of someone who is great is they're just trying to be better, not perfect. In terms of how they do that, I'll tell you the biggest one that I see from average sellers in terms of, hey, if I'd listen to a discovery call, I'd probably have a page of notes for you. If I looked at a sales process that you were running through, a journey for, a prospect that ended up becoming a customer, there are probably a lot of key areas we can improve upon that. What I think is different between them and others and how average sellers have become great is the preparation and the planning. How serious do they actually think about their goals. How do they track that? Do they have a habit tracker that they're actually running? Like, how serious do they take those things? Are they creating smart goals for themselves in their personal life and their professional life every quarter? Are they tracking those goals? Are we even, you know, take time to make time? Are you even spending 15 minutes at the end of the day to prep, plan, and commit? Right. Those are the important things that you can do. And people think, oh, yeah, like, I was there 2018. I was there. I was like, nobody, nobody who's amazing spends all this time reading books and writing out their goals and doing daily affirmations and manifesting and believing. And then in late 2019, I said, you know what? I've been such a contrarian on this my entire life. What if I actually give it a shot? You know, don't knock it before you try it. I've been knocking it before I tried it. And then wouldn't you know, it Broke into software as an ae, moved into a manager role eight months later, moved into a director role eight months after that. And then a year and a half after that, I moved into a head of sales development role. Because my life completely changed because I put a focus on my goals. Tracking my goals, looking at my goals, doing review, journaling, doing daily affirmations, manifesting my beliefs, understanding that I deserve these things that I want out of life, and then putting the prep and the planning into place. Five minutes. What did I forget to do today? That should be my priority number one tomorrow. Fantastic. Five minutes. What are the things after that that I need to accomplish to be successful tomorrow? Then five more minutes. What am I thankful for today? How do I feel about today? What does that reflection look like? 15 minutes at the end of every day to do that, even just doing that for two weeks at a time, or if you like something like the Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod, find something either on the front of the back half of your day to actually put towards reflection and planning and preparation, and you're gonna. You're gonna notice a change. Like, that's what I notice. Between the people that are achieving things that they feel proud about that other people try to model after, between the people that just keep going for the sake of going. Mm.

And it's one. I'm so glad you were willing to admit that you were a contrarian and then tried it, because it is. It's always been so interesting to me. Like, it's such a funny thing, in my opinion, to be contrarian against, but People will like, no, you don't have to read. You don't have to set goals. You don't have to think positive. It's like, why are we contrarian, right? Because contrarian means to be against it. Like, doesn't mean you have to agree, but to be against it.

And it does.

It happens all the time. People are against, against reading and they're against goal setting, they're against gratitude. And it's like, that's not a worthwhile battle. That's not even worth, like, that mental energy, right? So now let's keep going down this path, right? You mentioned goals. How do you do goals?

Right?

Let's get now tactical into this, right? It's like, all right, people, hear this again. Oh, set goals.

How.

How do you set your goals? Because I'm a big believer. I got my goals right here in front of me. I got my journal right here in front of me. I do it every single morning. How is. What's your process to set goals, whether that's quarterly or yearly?

So I'm going to walk through what's worked for me. And I've tried a couple different things. I always. As for those that might be listening and not not watching, as there's a frame productivity planner, I get it off Amazon. It's like every. Probably every two quarters or so. And it's very simple way to do. Oh, yes, yes, sir. There you go. See, like, this is. My brother sent me one of these. And this is. This is the contrarian to me. My brother sent me one of these Christmas 2018. And I was like, dude, this is some BS gift that my brother, who's a financial advisor is like, look at how successful I am. Here's your little thing to get better at your shitty life. I'm like, dude, buzz off. And then I actually started using it when I started working on my professional development and trying to get better. But I've tried a couple different planners. Some are really big, where it's like, write your year goals, break them into monthly, break them into quarterly, break them into weekly. But there's just too much flipping back and forth. I like this one because it really keeps me in check on a weekly basis and it helps with my reflection. I even like that it has Saturday and Sunday sections in there too, because some don't. They just have the weekdays. And I'm like, my life doesn't stop on the weekends. I'm still trying to get stuff done right. In terms of goals, I just use this. I use smart goals as an easy way to track my goals and I break them down. I have an annual goal for me. I have two different sheets. I have a, what I call a manifestation sheet. And it actually came out of the idea that I got from reading to the point of oh, books don't work. One of the cheesiest books I ever read, which was called the Power of Consistency. And I call it cheesy because it's basically like a guy who went to prison who ended up changing his life. Weldon Long ended up getting Tony Robbins to co sign his book. And it's kind of cheesy because it's not really a lot of how, it's just a lot of what and rah rah rah. But this idea I had about manifestations, consistency and discipline. I created this manifestation sheet where I got these five buckets. Legacy, financial, home, charity, all these different buckets where I have this ultimate goal. And that ultimate goal is typically measured on a lifely life basis, right? Like home, like I have a vision of the type. Like I want to own a ranch home, like a big huge ranch with horses and all this, that's not going to happen right now at my age, my early 30s. But when I'm 50, I'm hope hopefully that's the home that I hang my hat on for the rest of my life, right? So like I have these big meaty goals because it keeps me focused on when I'm 50, 55, 60, what do I want my life to look like right? When I'm just hanging out, my kids are doing their own thing and then in order to get there, I have broken them down into a ten year plan, I have broken into a five year plan. So it's kind of like a parent tree that just falls like all the way through to like column AA on the spreadsheet. And then separately of that I have a monthly tracker that I try to track my annual stuff on. So I have, every year I start with an annual tracker and then it has monthly goals and then I basically concoct those goals by using the smart formula. And every, every year I try to have three professional goals and three personal big goals. And then obviously those get broken down into sub goals that I can work on in each quarter, right? So maybe it's improve my financial health by X amount of dollars. If I just focus on that end goal. It's going to be pretty tough. But I break those down into quarterly and also knowing how my finances will shift, right. For me as a person who works full time but also does some stuff Outside of that, with the same sales doctor Q1 is a really big time for me because people are doing kickoffs and they're doing off sites and all these other things. Summer downtime, really just my W2 income and whatever happens out of, you know, any like ebay reselling or something I might be doing to get rid of some old kicks, you know, but it's, it's. You really have to get granular with it. And I probably get more granular than most people need to. Need to. But the issue is that most people don't even know where to start. And I would say if you're interested in starting, just think about, hey, today, what do I want to accomplish by the end of the year? I want to think of one big professional goal and one big personal goal and then two sub goals on how I'm going to dictate that that was successful that I got there. Right. Improve my health. What does that mean? Losing weight and eating a certain amount of calories every, every day and getting to that goal because maybe I'm overeating on calories and I'm just stagnant or I'm gaining weight. Then figure out what those two sub goals are to that big meaty goal. But just try with one and one. And then the great thing about it is I didn't start building this massive spreadsheet these plans out right away. This is three and a half years of work. You will build upon the plan, but start small and then go from there. And really, just at the end for this quarter, focus on one big professional goal and one big personal goal and go from there.

I love that. It's funny. I love that that book as well. And what was funny about that book though, too, like, as a takeaway for me, one, he does talk about having like the ranch. Like, you know, he's got his like, mountain home or whatever.

He's in Colorado.

I think the thing that always got. Yeah, the thing that always got me about that book though is like, well, if I had seven years to manifest two, that things like that part, I feel like got breezed over a little bit in the book of like, he was the. For anyone hasn't read it, he was in jail for a significant period of time. And it's like, well, yeah, like manifesting every single day for that period of time will change a lot of people's lives for sure. So that always, like, I always got a kick out of that because it's phenomenal. Phenomenal.

Yeah. Why do you think?

And so let's keep going down this path, right? Like when, like, you know, shoot, you know, back against the wall versus back on the floor of the casket. Like when you get to that point where you're against the wall but you come out alive, you tend to do some things right. And he was able to change that mindset while he was there and then come out, right. His story, even like with repairing his relationship, like with this, just all that was just, just such a good, good read. So let's keep going down this path then. So, okay, first it starts with the goals. All right, so I've got some goals, right. I've kind of mapped out, right. I do something very similar. Like just a few buckets I get. I've actually gotten better at narrowing. Narrowing. I don't do 10 years. I do one in three.

That's it.

I have no idea what I'm doing in 10 years. No idea, right? But I also like to take 10 year goals and see, can I do them in three. So that would be my only advice to you on this call that ranch. What would it take to do it in three? Just play with it. Just play with the idea of what would it take to do it in three and see what kind of ideas might come from. From that. So, okay, we got our goals. Then what? Right? Because a lot of people set goals and then they go in the drawer and then nothing happens. So how do the greats treat goals differently? So I've set my goals.

Cool.

Now what did the goal.