Behavioral Goals For Business Success

Welcome back to another edition of New AmSAM

Radio. Floboboys here with you. And really, we're

talking about ways to improve our lives personally

and in the workplace. And on today's episode,

we're diving into a topic of goals. And to help

me with that, we're once again pleased to announce

and to invite behavioral coach with over 24 years

of experience, Debbie Long, to the show. How's

it going? Thank you very much. I appreciate you

having me on. Yeah. But the pleasure is all mine.

This is really a serious topic. So I'm glad to

have your expertise on the show today. Thank

you. I had one episode with you before and I've

had about four previous episodes on this channel

and I've created a few more channels because

I'm going to be doing some different things with

podcasts and everything's going to be labeled.

I have an RSS feed. Address and i have apple

podcast and spotify and whatever else is on there

there's about fifteen other things on that i

had a podcast about goal making. And goal setting

in corporations with another show that i was

on i kinda wanted to go over what i didn't say

there or fill in something so that's why there's

two different episodes of the same thing. Most

people know on your podcast and stuff that I'm

a corporate skills behavioral coach. I've been

in this business for over 25 years. I had a spiritual

teacher mentor and she died in 2021 of cancer.

Even though I worked with her for this that whole

time, I decided that I would continue this on

my own. And I did some advertising and some website

and I realized that podcasting is a big industry

and I was reading the statistic and it's something

like four billion people watch podcast is it's

an unbelievable insane statistic and then I started

researching it so I was able to get take some

invitations on podcast so this is kind of like

where before podcast and. My spiritual teacher,

she wasn't really like 25 years old. She was

basically set in her ways and she did everything

in person basically. I guess this is kind of

the same thing because I'm trying to reach. We

did like local people and people that they knew.

A lot of it was done like over the phone, but

most of it was done in person. So I'm trying

to reach as many people as I can. possibly all

over the world. It doesn't matter as long as

they speak English and as long as they have like

an internet connection. I mean, that's really

all they need. I love the fact that you have

some goals and you're setting it and you're making

it happen, which is hopefully we can ask you

about how you can help others with their goals

on today's episode. Because frankly, everyone

has an idea of what they want to do, but sometimes

motivation falls apart. So to start things off,

the question I have off the top is What is some

of the top reason or what is the number one reason

most people fail at reaching their goals? There's

a lot of reasons, but a big one is it might not

be like numbered one, two and three, because

there are a lot of ones that are equally important.

So one that's very important is that a company

will make goals that are too high. So what will

happen is. They will do very well, like they'll

go into business or they'll be in business for

a while. And then all of a sudden the business

starts booming. So then they say, oh, last year

we didn't, our goals were pretty low or they

were just flat even. But now we did had a really

good year. So now they expect to have another

really good year. Now they don't know what's

going to happen because nobody's a psychic. And

even if somebody is, they're still not going

to know 100%. So they'll say, oh, I had a really

good year. So now let's make a really higher

goal. And then let's say they do good. Let's

say they even meet that goal. Then they're going

to make a higher goal. So every year it goes

up and up and up. And it turns into the fact

that those goals are not reality over time. They

don't become reality anymore because there's

a certain way. There's a mathematical way. There's

a psychological way. There's a lot of different

ways that a company comes to an actual number

when they're making a goal so they can make daily

goals that they give to the employees. Let's

say if it's like a sales company. or an electronics

firm, internet company. So they have goals that

they'll give to the employees daily, weekly,

monthly. And then that equals their goal, the

yearly goal that they have on their spreadsheet.

That's gonna be what their bottom line is. So

that's gonna be above and below. But the thing

is that they might stay with that mathematical

equation for a little bit. But then when they

start to see increases, then they kind of get

carried away. And then they want to make the

goal higher and higher. And then before you know

it, that mathematical equation goes completely

out of the window. And that's the end of that.

And then the goals become too high. And then

they're not meeting the goals. And then they

say. I can't do this. This is not working out.

And now we're failing as a company because we're

not meeting the goals. And we did good for X

amount of years, but the past four years, five

years, we did good. Now we're not doing good

and they have no idea why. And they're not realizing

that they're not following the proper procedure.

that they did originally. And the reason why

they were good and they went above the goals

was because they were following the proper equation,

the way that they did it in order for them to

meet the goal. So then they can go above the

goal. Originally, that was how they did it. But

then when you start to go above, then you just

want more and more. And that's greed, really,

when you really think about it. But they're not

really they're not it's not intentional. They're

not saying I wanna I want to do this. I want

to be greedy. They're really not saying that

it's just how it works out. So that's why it's

really important. And then that creates negativity

everywhere. That's the other problem. And then

the managers and the executives are very negative.

And then they pass that on to their employees.

Yeah, definitely impact the culture. So how Would

you define a strong goal in a business or leadership

setting? A strong goal would be a goal that's

based on reality. It's not either the mathematical

equation or however they do it. So they are succeeding

every year because a company has to make their

goals. Because if they don't, they'll be out

of business in a year or two years. Even if they've

been in business for 30 years, if they don't

make goals in two years, they'll probably be

out of business. That's how serious it is. Once

they get above that, then they go a little bit

haywire. What role, in your opinion, does motivation

play in success of obtaining goals? And how do

you maintain that motivation throughout the goal

attaining process? What I would do is I would

make daily goals and that probably is the most

important because some companies will just make

monthly goals and then expect their employees

to make that goal every month where you have

30 days. It's a long period of time. And then

at the end of the week, have them say what their

goals are. and how they made the goal that day

and how they didn't. So you would have, let's

say like a weekly meeting, all big businesses

do this. I'm talking about very, very large companies,

the top companies, they all do this. So they'll

have weekly meetings, sales meetings, or goal

meetings. And they'll have these meetings and

then if they see that they're not making the

goal, let's say an employee or let's say a division.

Maybe the goal, if it's a really big company,

it might be separated like into divisions. So

if they're not making it the one week, then they

say, okay, let's go over this. And then the next

week they don't make it again. Now you could

see the way that that's becoming a problem. So

if you make a monthly goal, then that might not

be as effective because you have a span of 30

days. there's too much room for play there for

problems to happen. It's going to be really difficult

to fix it because then you got to fix a month.

If they were down three weeks out of the four

weeks, now you got to fix three weeks in the

next month. That's not very wise to do. So that's

the whole thing. Yeah. Speaking about being,

being down and when someone feels stuck or discouraged,

How can they reset their goals or put themselves

back on the path of being successful? Even if

they don't make goals and negative things happen

or they get upset, the idea is to always remain

positive. So if I don't make a goal one week,

two weeks, I still want to say to myself, I'm

going to make the goal or I'm going to try to

make the goal. Even if I think I'm not going

to, because what I think should be what I say.

If I don't think I'm going to make the goal,

then I should say I'm not going to make it because

it depends a lot of times on what I think. Because

if I think I'm going to make the goal and I say

I'm not, am I or am I not? Then it creates confusion.

So the idea is to change your thinking, obviously.

So I know that I'm going to make the goal, but

that doesn't happen overnight. So that's why

the easiest way to do it is to train my brain

to think positive. that I'm going to make the

goal or even if I don't know. But if I really

think I'm not, then I should say that I'm not

until I could learn that I can because I might

not want to learn. I can. It really depends on

the person. Some people just like to stay negative

and some people just like are interested in becoming

positive. That really depends upon the individual.

Nobody's trying to say that individual has to

think a certain way. That's up to them. But if

they are negative all the time, then that's going

to affect the company. That's the bottom line,

because the company is trying to make money.

That's right. That's the reason why they're making

goals, because they want to make they want the

employees to meet the goals so they can make

a profit. They could increase their bottom line

at the end of the year. And then maybe the employees

will get bonuses or raises. But we want to make

sure that everybody's positive. So what do they

do with somebody who's negative all the time

like that? Well, this question is for leaders.

And what's a practical step that leaders can

take now to align their personal goals with team

goals or company goals? What I would do is I

would have a meeting with. The employees, like

I said, either could be like a division if each

supervisor, if there are supervisors and they

each have divisions or all the employees. And

I would say we want to start this new way. We

want to start this new process of how we're going

to run this company. We're thinking of a few.

One is making goals. And we have this theory

that we're going to make daily goals, and this

is how we're going to do it. And I would make

this whole formula in detail, and I wouldn't

tell the employees this is what we're going to

do. I would say I could even make formula number

one, formula number two, and they are outlines.

And then I would present them to the employees.

I'm serving the employees because I want the

employees to work for me, because if there was

no employees, I wouldn't have a company. So I

want the employees to agree with what I'm presenting

for the most part. So which one are we in line

with? Formula A, Formula B. They might not know,

they might not agree, but at least you can get

a little bit of feedback. And it might change,

but you want to be able to get into the groove

of something. So that way they could get used

to it. In your line of work, working with your

clients on the behavioral coaching side, what's

one method or framework you teach your clients

to stay on track with their own goals? Well,

to be positive, number one, there's other things

like not to bring your home behavior into the

work and vice versa. Maybe now there are companies

today that have counselors. They have maybe not

they might not necessarily call them a counselor.

But really, that's what they are. But they can

talk to you and then it won't affect the company.

Like they don't tell the company like what you're

talking about like that. That's one good thing

that that can help them. The main thing is that

for everybody to be in line and get everybody

to try to agree. And I want to be honest with

myself. I don't want to say I don't want to lie

to myself. I don't want to tell my boss everything's

OK when it's really not. I want to be honest

with myself and my boss and try to be open as

I can. And if there's a problem or an issue,

then I want to be able to go to him and say,

this is what I've seen. This is what I've witnessed.

And I'm just letting when people do that, that

helps the company. And believe it or not, that's

going to help the company to meet to meet their

goals, because this is a ways that we're changing

our behavior and we're being honest. And we're

trying to be as good of a person as we can. And

that's creating a certain type of energy, a certain

type of vibe in their workplace. And that creates

positivity. And also that's going to help them

because with the goals, because that that's kind

of fitting everything together. Communication

is key. Yeah. In your experience, what's the

personal or client success story where a goal

was completely changed by the outcome? There

is one situation that I know of. Well, there's

a few, but I'm going to pick one that I know

of that there was a store and it was a big company

and they were doing good and then they weren't.

They kind of like fell back only because of like

the economy or whatever. They had to get rid

of a lot of employees just because they had to

make cuts because otherwise they wouldn't have

made it. So then. They had very little employees

and then something happened and they boomed and

they just started doing great. But now they have

no employees. So now they think because we have

little employees and we're doing so good that

now we could potentially be losing money. We're

not treating the customers. Customers are walking

out the door because they don't see anybody.

And this could work in any company. This could

work like picture your company. So now they have

to hire people and they have to do it very quickly

because it's happening now. And this wasn't something,

this was something that was unexpected. So to

tell you the truth, what I would do is I would

have, and I'm going to tell you a lot of companies

do this and they don't even realize that doing

it. I would have people that I could hire basically

in my back pocket at any time. Now what we do

is most of the time, Is we go online and we find

a job that way through like an online website

a job board. And the manager or the boss has

a whole database of resumes because those resumes

are going to stay there and maybe they'll stay

there for two three years i mean the manager

could download the resumes onto the computer

they could drive whatever they can have those

resumes forever. But a lot of times, managers

don't use those resumes. So they think, oh, this

resume is two years old. This is no good when

you have no idea what this person is doing. But

I mean, this was two years ago. This person could

be looking for a job. You have no idea. So I

don't want to think just because. And most companies

have this. Almost all companies have this because

they've all advertised. At some point even if

they don't have it on the computer they still

have it on the website or they have access to

it. That's what i want to do i want to be able

to say i can go now onto my computer i can get

these resumes. And i'm gonna start calling these

people i don't know if i'm gonna get anybody

or not but i'm gonna call them and i'm gonna

put in the footwork and i could do that the second.

Or I could write emails or something. I could

do that at two o 'clock in the morning. So that's

something that I could do now. Because posting

a current job and then having people respond

and doing the interview, that all takes time.

I need the people now. Whether it's a store or

a company or a big corporation, it doesn't matter.

Because a lot of companies this happens to. Whether

the business is great and then there's a recession.

This is the way that it works. This is just the

way that the world is or people spend a lot of

money and then a few years go by. They don't

spend money anymore because of tons of different

situations. So I want to make sure that I always

have access to people that I can hire. And that's

advice. That's worth its weight in gold. Thank

you so much, Debbie. Just being able to listen

to your experience and your situation has been

more than invaluable. I hope our listeners and

watchers feel that way too, but now is the fun

part. If someone wants to learn more about you

or interact with you, how they go about doing

that. I have a website, life in bloom and why

.net. I have podcasts and the podcasts are on

my YouTube channel, which is Debbie Longo, EBC.

executive behavioral coach, or they could send

me an email info at life and bloom and why. So

there's a few ways that they could do it. They

could also go on Facebook the best way. And I

have a phone number, so I would probably go on

my website, life and bloom and why .net and then

all the information's on there to contact me.

Absolutely. Thanks again for your time here on

today's show. Thank you very much. I appreciate

it.