When’s the last time you knew you would be held accountable for not doing what you said you were going to do?

By virtue of their professions, business entrepreneurs and sales professionals have tremendous freedom and independence. That’s part of what attracts many people to these career paths. But often, that coveted freedom and independence are accompanied by a lack of accountability.

Successful people often have an accountability partner behind the scenes, holding their feet to the fire and keeping them on track to meeting their goals.

Being accountable to someone you respect does come with a certain level of pressure to perform and to execute, but that’s a good thing. When you know you have to share your let downs with someone you respect, you’ll be motivated to push yourself.

Don’t be mistaken. An accountability partner isn’t an adversary to be feared. Rather, when you do face obstacles – and we all do – they help you explore why. When you experience setbacks, they’re right there with you and assist in seeking an effective solution. The longer you work with an accountability partner, the better they understand your business, and the more invested they become in seeing you succeed.

Now I’d like to take the theory of accountability and apply it in practice.

Let’s say, for instance, that you’d like to increase your sales quota this year but are struggling to maintain the motivation necessary to increase your clientele and your profits.

How can accountability be utilized as a tool to help you achieve your goals?

The first step is to record all the sales activities that you need to do on a daily and weekly basis to reach the specific goal you set. It’s important to have a goal, but until you identify and break down the action steps necessary to transform it into a reality, then the goal is just a fleeting dream.

Do you need to make prospecting calls to collect hot leads? Do you need to arrange phone appointments to qualify those leads? Do you need to make closing calls during which you address possible objections? Every activity that you need to do should be recorded on paper  to make them more concrete.

The next key step is to take those activities and quantify them. To ensure that you stay on track, you need to define “on track.” It’s important that you be specific about what you want to accomplish on a daily and weekly basis.

What is the minimum number of complimentary sales calls you will make per day? How many new leads will you produce every day? How many sales will you make per day? By establishing these benchmarks, you have something to measure up against to ensure that you’re on track.

The third step is arguably the glue that makes the first two steps stick. Choose an accountability partner you respect to keep you honest. An accountability partner’s role is to meet regularly with you to reflect on your progress and ensure that you’re on track to accomplish what you set out to do.

Do you keep falling short of meeting your benchmarks? If you’ve answered yes, you would benefit from working with a business coach with the expertise necessary to help you follow through on your action plan. The right business coach will help you create a plan if you don’t already have one, identify realistic benchmarks and serve as an accountability partner, challenging you to reach your goals on a consistent basis.

As the master business development and sales strategist at Celeste Giordano Coaching, I work regularly with clients on mastering accountability. We speak on Monday to review goals for the week. On Thursday follow up calls, we review progress made. If necessary, we make necessary changes to overcome challenges that presented themselves. Busy business owners, entrepreneurs and sales professionals often find that knowing they have to report to someone about their progress is the push that they need to reach their daily and weekly quotas.

During every accountability call, clients explain why they did – or didn’t – complete the clearly defined tasks which they set out to execute. I motivate my clients to push themselves just a little harder to stay on track, stay focussed and develop the tools necessary to succeed in reaching their objectives and mastering sales in 2016.

To recap, if you want to “double-plus” your income THIS year, take action in executing this three step plan:

1. Identify your goals and the actions that you’ll need to achieve them.
2. Quantify your goals with specific benchmarks.
3. Choose a business mentor to hold you accountable.

Because I work closely with my clients and monitor their progress via weekly accountability calls, I only work with a select number of clients at any given time. Email me today at celeste@celestegiordano.com to reserve your slot and make accountability the driving force that helps you achieve or exceed your goals in 2016!

Remember, if you execute your specific action plan and are accountable to sticking to it, the sales WILL follow!

Now the only question that remains is: Are you ready to rev your sales engines?