Whether you are a star athlete or an Executive Vice President of a million dollar firm, one measure stands above all others, performance. Performance is what drives business to succeed, what generates revenue and what evokes growth and expansion. On that same note, lack of performance is most often what causes a business to fail.

As a business owner, specializing in helping companies meet their sales growth goals, the key factors that I help companies to uncover are those impeding their employees’ performance. And time after time the prime target is always: EXPECTATIONS. Our expectations drive our performance in every area of our lives. Low expectations often yield little result, unrealistic expectations often yield unhappy employees and unmet goals.

To illustrate my point, there is an exercise that I utilize with all new clients. It involves taking three volunteers and challenging them to draw the highest horizontal line they possibly can with a marker and a flip chart, the only stipulation is that they must not leave the ground. After we find a winner in the first round there is a redemption round. This time, they are asked to draw a line at least 1 in. higher then their last attempt; the same rules apply. Every time I do this exercise, all three participants exceed their first attempt and meet their goal. So what is different the second time around? I set an expectation! There is a direct correlation between our expectations and our results!

A team without goals will under-perform EVERY TIME. So ask yourself, are you creating an environment that allows for performance? Are you setting your team up to SUCCEED? Whether you want to increase your own performance or that of your team, start with raising expectations and you are bound to see better results. Mike Zaruba is the founder of Corporate Sales Solutions, LLC. For over 20 years he has helped companies of all types and sizes achieve their sales growth goals.

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