Setting Goals
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
As I've blogged before, my son Conner is into cross country. The Eagles' season is almost over, already, but he's knocked something like three minutes off his personal best time over the season. Of course, he's only a freshman and his times weren't that great to start with because he'd never truly trained before. But, with coaching, he's shown tremendous progress and is excited to continue.
[Conner passing other runners at Portage Invitational on Saturday]
A lady who is part of the high school's x-country community asked Conner if he had trained over the summer, which he really hadn't because he was gone so much (vacations, camp, grandparents, etc.). The teams that do the best, she said, are those with active training programs throughout the summer. Otherwise, the entire fall is spent getting into proper condition rather than finetuning and working on form and running strategies. It makes sense to me.
The progress made was quite invigorating for Conner. Actually seeing the results of his hard work on an almost weekly basis helped fuel the desire and fire to continue working hard. This is true for lots of things, such as losing weight and learning a new language and solving Soduku puzzles (on that I cannot speak from experience ... I hate those things!).
It's true for the business opportunity Amway Global supports as well. A lot of the focus for Amway Global / Quixtar has been on making new IBOs more profitable more quickly. That cannot happen with the compensation plan alone, since it takes some time to develop a downline that can contribute significantly to bonus income. Early income has to come from actual retail sales. That's why efforts have been focused on stating this more frequently, on providing training, on raising awareness, on developing and introducing products that lend themselves more easily to new customers, and more. Are we done yet? Of course not ... it's a long process to change business practices decades in the making. That's why it's called transformation!
What Conner will discover ahead is that it will get harder and harder to drop 30 seconds from his personal record. But early on he's experiencing successes that keep his interest high. That's what our business has to do for new IBOs, because unless we engage new IBOs quickly, we lose them. With the small initial financial investment we require, there's really not much for a newer IBO to lose if they decide early on this business is not for them. But each time a new contact says, "Hey, I saw their commercial" or "Oh yeah, I saw their bus at the Tina concert" or "Wow, I LOVE that protein bar you gave to me last week," the new IBO's confidence rises and their excited for their next personal best.
I hope you're experiencing your "personal best" today!