Dopamine isn't your customer
Don't paint the roof before the house stands
Most people set the goal at the wrong end. They say a thousand followers, or more views. That's painting the roof before the house stands. Visibility can feel like a goal, but at best it's a means — and often not even that.
You don't set helper goals, and you don't set like goals. You set sales goals.
// Sales goals, not visibility goalsA goal about followers drives the wrong behaviour: chasing reach. A goal about booked conversations drives the right behaviour: reaching out. Choose the metric that forces the action you actually want.
Count backwards from the deal
Say you want two new deals a month. How many meetings does that usually take? How many conversations per meeting? How many contacts per conversation? Now you have a weekly number. It's concrete, it can be followed up, and it's yours.
From deal to weekly number
Start with the result you want and work backwards, step by step, until you land on a number you control yourself.
DealsStart with the goal: how many new deals do you want a month? This is what you hope for — the starting point, not the number you steer by.
MeetingsHow many meetings does it usually take to close a deal? Multiply — now you know how many meetings the month needs.
ConversationsHow many conversations are needed per booked meeting? Keep counting — the number is getting concrete.
Contacts per weekHow many contacts per conversation? Divide across the weeks. This is your real goal — the number you control.
Separate what you control from what you hope for
The number of deals, you hope for. The number of contacts, you control. Put the most important goal on what you control — so you don't feel at the mercy of luck and the algorithm.
And the decisive part
A goal on a piece of paper does nothing. It's the decision to hit this week's number, every week, that actually moves something.
Knowing how to set goals is easy. Actually chasing your activity goal on a grey Tuesday in November, when no one is watching, is what separates those who succeed from those who plan to succeed.
// The grey TuesdaySet a number you own. Write it down where you see it. Chase it.
Start from the deal, count backwards to a weekly number you control, and decide to hit it every week — even when no one is watching.
LinkedCoach helps you set goals that drive business — and hold on to them when everyday life tries to eat them up. With a team of nine coaches, we help everyone from global corporations to the one-person business use LinkedIn for commercial purposes. The common denominator among our customers is the realisation that their potential customers are on LinkedIn.