Which is more important: Goals or Systems?

I used to believe that the most important thing you could do to grow your business is to set goals.?

I still believe that goals are important, and that setting impossible goals is more important than setting SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-oriented), but over the years, I’ve grown to believe that systems are even more important than goals.

As a coach, I used to set bigger income goals each year, along with goals for how many people I could help that year…and my career and finances floundered.

I even taught hundreds of advisors how to create powerful goals and showed them all the benefits they’d receive by achieving them.

All of this worked for the advisors I shared these ideas with. But the years of pain and experience showed me something even more exciting:

System-setting is even more powerful than goal setting.?

In their book, Tested in the Trenches, Ron Carson and Steve Sanduski identify 9 areas in which a financial advisor’s practice can and should be systemized.? Eight of these are also essential for life insurance agents. ?These include systems for:

1.Prospects and referrals

2. New clients

3. Transfers

4.Trading (financial advisors)

5. Client service

6. Updates

7. Client appreciation

8. Office procedures

9. Human resources

In his groundbreaking book, Atomic Habits, James Clear says:

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

DO set goals. Set them—and forget them.? Design and implement systems that help you reach those goals.? Goals may set your direction, but systems get you there.

If whatever systems you have are not helping your business grow, contact me to help you create and implement systems that will fix that. Message me here or write me at [email protected].

And, in the meantime, keep REACHING…