In the Summer of 1979 I was 2 years out of High School. The only thing I knew for sure about my future career was that I was not going to be in Sales. Sales people, I thought, were pushy, aggressive people that were always trying to manipulate me do do something I didn't want to do. During that summer for whatever reason I read a book called, How to Master the Art of Selling, by Tom Hopkins.
This book absolutely changed my life. In the first chapter Tom described what selling is and what it is not. He then went on to explain that nothing happens until a salesperson sells something. There is no need for production, accounting or management until something gets sold. I had been looking at all those other areas before I had this revelation about my future.
That book started me on a journey of self discovery and learning about motivation. I have had success in both sales and sales management since 1990. Some of the authors I read or listened to were; Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, Stephen Covey and Zig Ziglar.
These authors all had a huge impact in my life and I continue to follow them today but Zig Ziglar was the first person that I was aware of that talked about goal setting. Not only did he talk about setting goals, he laid out a specific plan to develop and meet my goals. He talked about the difference in people that had goals and people that did not. He suggested that only 5% of the population had a written plan for their lives. Zig had stories about people who had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams by implementing his plan. He showed the difference between what he called a Wandering Generality and a Meaningful Specific.
Zig went on to explain how you wouldn't build a house without a blueprint but we lived our lives by wandering from crisis to crisis with no goals or plan. Here is the Zig Ziglar 7 step process for setting goals. https://curvefinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Goal-Setting-Canvas-1.pdf
Zig Ziglar
Tom Hopkins
Jim Rohn
