Hitting your quarterly revenue number isn’t easy, but you go hard at it every quarter. Riiiiiight?

Same with goals. Setting various goals every quarter isn’t easy either, but burying your head in the sand won’t make customer objections disappear.

At first, setting skill goals will feel clunky because they’re tough to measure. Goals tied to money are easy. They’re exact. They can be measured.

But setting skill goals is more ambiguous. For example, this goal might be tough to quantify progress against:

"In the following quarter, I want to improve my ability to deal with objections."

It’s a noble and smart goal because sellers must be competent in handling customer objections to thrive. But how would one best measure that goal? This is where specificity and measurement must attach to your goals to give it teeth.

How’s this?
Goal: "In the following quarter, I want to improve my ability to deal with objections."
Measurement:
1. I will proactively ask about obstacles and objections on every interaction with a customer.
2. I will proactively seed objections in every customer conversation to initiate a conversation about such obstacles.
3. I will listen and display empathy when talking about objections (in order to build trust with the buyer).

Start somewhere. Start slowly. But DO set skill goals for yourself and watch yourself grow!