What is the difference between goals and systems?

A goal is the result you want by a date, like 9 new clients this quarter. A system is the routine that gets you there: a daily call block, a dated next step after every conversation and a review every Friday.

Are systems better than goals?

No, you need both. Locke and Latham found that specific, difficult goals beat telling people to do their best, and the goal sets how big the system has to be. The system is what you do each day to reach it.

What are some good daily goals for salespeople?

Actions you fully control: a set number of dials in a fixed block, a dated next step on every conversation and the count logged as you go. Add a floor you'd hit on your worst day, like 5 calls.

Are goals and plans the same thing?

No. A goal is where you want to be, and a plan is the list of steps you write once to get there. A system is the part of the plan that repeats every week, and it keeps running after the goal is met.

How often should you review your sales system?

Every week, on the same day, for 20 minutes. Check whether the call block happened, whether every conversation has a dated next step and where the count dropped, then pick one thing to change.

What should you do after you hit your sales target?

Keep the system running, and book next week's call block before you celebrate. The deals you close in two months come from the calls you make this week.

Setting goals vs systems: build a week that hits the number

A goal is the number, a system is the week

Your goal is the result you want by a date: nine new clients this quarter, or a revenue number by December. A system is what you do every working week to get there. For a seller that's a call block at the same time each day, a dated next step after every conversation and a weekly review. Setting goals tells you where you're headed. The system decides whether you arrive.

In his essay on goals and systems, James Clear puts it this way: goals help you plan your progress, and systems are how the progress gets made. He doesn't tell you to drop the goal. His point is that most people pour their effort into the target and almost none into the week underneath it.

Here's how the two compare when you sell for a living:

	The goal	The system
Example	9 new clients by 31 December	Calls 9:30 to 10:30 each weekday, a dated next step on every chat, a Friday review
Who decides it	You and the buyer	You
When you see it move	When a deal signs	Every morning the block runs
What it tells you	Whether you got there	Why you did or didn't
When it stops	The day you hit it	It rolls into next quarter

A plan sits between the two. It's the list of steps you write once, at the start of the quarter. The system is the part of that plan that repeats every week, and it keeps repeating after the goal is met.

Why setting goals alone stalls a seller

Clear lists four problems with goals. Each one has a version every rep has lived through.

Clear's problem	What it looks like in sales
Winners and losers share the goal	Everyone on the team has a target. The rep who hits it and the rep who misses it had the same number, and very different weeks.
Reaching a goal is a one-off change	The month-end blitz: 70 calls in four days closes the gap, and on the 1st the pipeline is thin again.
Goals put your satisfaction off	You only feel you've had a good week when a deal signs, which can be six weeks after the call that started it.
Goals work against the long run	You hit the quarter, ease off for a fortnight, and the gap turns up two months later.

The last row costs the most. Clear's example is the runner who trains for months and stops the day after the race. In sales it's the month after a big win. The calls that would have filled next quarter's pipeline never happen, because the reason to make them has gone.

Managers should look hard at the first row. Two reps carry the same target and only one hits it, so the number can't explain the gap. Look at what each of them did between 9 and 11.

Why you still need the number

Don't throw the goal away. Goal research says the number does real work. In their 2002 review in American Psychologist, Edwin Locke and Gary Latham report that specific, difficult goals consistently led to higher performance than telling people to do their best. A "do your best" week has no line to measure against, so almost any week passes.

Latham and Seijts tested near-term goals in a business game, reported in the same review. Players given near-term goals on top of the end goal made more profit than players with only the end goal. They also beat players told to do their best. For you, that means the quarter's number and a smaller one for this week.

So the goal sets the size of the system. Nine clients a quarter needs a bigger call block than four. How to set sales targets covers picking the number, and SMART goals for sales works it back to weekly calls. Then build the week that delivers it.

The five parts of a seller's system

A sales system doesn't need to be clever. It needs five parts, and each one has to happen without a fresh decision every morning. You control every one of them fully, so they make good daily goals: a number of dials in a fixed block, a date on every conversation and the count logged before you stop.

1. A day and a time for the calls

"I'll make my calls tomorrow" is a wish. "Weekdays, 9:30 to 10:30, before I open email" is a system. The clock time matters more than it looks. A Wharton School team led by Milkman ran a field test on flu shots at a large firm and published it in PNAS. Staff asked to write down the date and the time they'd get vaccinated had a rate 4.2 percentage points higher than staff who got no prompt. A date with no time added 1.5 points, and that gap wasn't statistically significant.

Put the block in your calendar the way you'd book a client. If starting is the hard part, start with five calls and let the block grow from there. In ActivityTracker the block can be a routine with its own days and clock time, and each tick tells you how many days in a row you've kept it.

2. The list is ready before the block

The block is for dialling. Choose tomorrow's names before you finish today, each with a number and one line on why you're calling. When the list isn't ready at 9:30, the hour turns into research.

3. Every conversation ends with a dated next step

This is the follow-up half of the system, and the part most reps skip. Before you hang up or send the last message, the next step gets a date: "send the revised quote Thursday", "call after her board meeting on the 14th". The lead with no next step is the one that goes quiet.

Quiet leads need a rule as well, so you don't decide each one from scratch. Try this: after two follow-ups with no reply, send one short message that gives them a reason to answer. Then date the next touch three weeks out and stop chasing daily.

4. A count you keep as you go

Log each dial, conversation and next step when it happens. Locke and Latham found that goals work best when people get summary feedback on their progress, and that goals plus feedback beat goals alone, which is what the running count you keep during the week gives you. Without it, Friday's review runs on memory, and memory is kind to a slow week.

5. A weekly review that changes one thing

Twenty minutes, on the same day every week. You find the part that slipped and change one thing for next week.

Set each part of your system up as a routine with its own days and clock time, tick it off when it's done, and watch the streak you've kept.

See how Routines work

Farah's week on the system

Made-up example: Farah sells corporate training to HR managers. Her goal is 9 new clients by 31 December. Her system: calls from 9:30 to 10:30 every weekday, a dated next step on every conversation, a count in her log and a review at 4pm on Friday.

Monday: 16 dials, 4 conversations, 1 meeting booked. All four conversations end with a date.

Tuesday: a client problem eats the whole morning. She keeps her floor and makes 5 calls at 4:30pm, which gets her 1 conversation.

Wednesday: the block runs, with 15 dials and 3 conversations. Jason, an HR lead at a logistics firm, hasn't answered two follow-ups. She sends one line on a course date that suits his team and dates the next touch for three weeks out.

Thursday: 14 dials, 2 conversations, 1 meeting booked. Friday morning: 12 dials, 2 conversations.

Friday review: the block ran on 4 days out of 5, with the floor on the fifth. She had 12 conversations, and 9 of them have a dated next step. The 3 without are all calls that ended with "send me something". Her one change: type the date into the record before she sends the brochure. The next Friday, every conversation has a date. All figures are invented.

Farah didn't need a better goal that week. The number told her where she was headed, and the review showed her which follow-ups were slipping.

The Friday review: check the system as well as the score

Checking your running total against the target tells you whether you're behind. It doesn't tell you why. The system review does, with four questions:

On how many days out of five did the block happen?
How many conversations ended without a dated next step?
Where did the count drop: dials to conversations, conversations to next steps, or next steps to meetings?
What's the one change for next week, and which day will you make it?

Change one thing per week. If you move the time, rewrite the list and change your opening line in the same week, you won't know which one helped.

Reading the answers is simple. If the block ran every day and the number is still behind, the system runs but it's aimed wrong, so look at who's on the list or the first ten seconds of the call. When the block only ran twice, the block is the problem, and a new script won't fix it.

Managers can run the same four questions in a 1:1. "Why are you behind?" turns into "which day didn't the block happen, and what got in the way?", which a rep can answer without getting defensive. The weekly reflection template holds the week's numbers and one change, and takes 20 minutes. In ActivityTracker, the weekly reflection fills in the week's actual numbers from what you logged and carries last week's targets forward. You start the review from the count instead of from memory.

When the system breaks

It will. A sick week, a client emergency, a month-end that swallows every morning. What counts is how fast it restarts.

One missed day changes nothing. Lally and colleagues followed 96 volunteers building a daily habit for 12 weeks, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, and found that missing one chance to do it did not materially affect how the habit formed. Tomorrow's block is the one that matters.
Keep a floor. Decide now what the worst-day version is, like 5 calls at any hour. On Farah's Tuesday the floor kept the week in one piece.
Restart at the normal size. "I'll make 60 calls to catch up" makes the next block heavier, and heavy blocks get skipped.
Keep it running after a big month. Book next week's block before you celebrate. The deals you close in two months come from the calls you make this week.
When the system runs for a month and the number still misses, change the aim: who's on the list, what you offer and how the call opens.

What to do this week

Write the goal and its date at the top of a page. Put the call block in your calendar for every weekday, with a start time. This week, give every open conversation a dated next step. Then book 20 minutes on Friday afternoon for the review, and pick one thing to change.

Setting goals vs building systems: how sellers hit the number