I’ve been thinking a lot about accountability lately as I’ve been building out our new Sales Momentum Learning Lab, which is all based on this idea of baking in accountability, where the participants have to respond to me and give me an update every week on what they’re doing and the power of knowing that you have to sort of be held accountable by someone.
I’ve been thinking about that, and about what I’m watching, what I’m observing, and what I know from my own experience, and I know that accountability is a one-two punch. The first part of that punch is the plan that you’ve got to have a system, a plan, a commitment. Like, I have to state what I’m going to do, when I’m going to do it, and how I’m going to get it done.
So part one is you have to have a plan. You have to know what I need to deliver. When do I need to deliver it by? And most importantly, how am I going to get that done? And when I say it’s not just an intellectual exercise, I mean baking it into your calendar. It tells people you’re carving out time for it.
Whatever it is, in many cases, we need a wingman who will help us set and accomplish that goal. So this week, I want to focus on the first half, which is what’s the plan? What is that thing on your to-do list? That is really pretty mission critical to your business, but it’s probably mission critical in a bigger way, in a more substantial direction-changing way.
It is writing the book. It is launching a podcast. It is getting the documents ready to apply to speak at a big conference. It’s something big that, if you don’t do it, nobody but you will notice. But the business will see. So what is it? When does it have to be done by, and give yourself some grace?
What’s my plan? What do I need to deliver and when? And who’s my wingman? Who’s already done it before or can coach or encourage or nag me along the way to make sure that I actually honor how I’m going to get it done? And then how do I bake it into my day, my week, my month, and make sure that nothing gets in the way of me getting that done?
That’s part one!
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Hey, everybody. Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute this week coming to you from Cabo San Lucas, where we're down here with a Peer Group. You know, I've been thinking a lot about accountability lately as I've been building out our new Sales Momentum Learning Lab, which is all based – it's all based on this idea of baking in accountability, where the participants have to respond to me and give me an update every week on what they're doing and the power of knowing that you have to sort of be held accountable by someone. I've been thinking about that and that and what I'm watching and what I'm observing, and what I know from my own experience, is that accountability is a one-two punch. And and the first part of that punch is the plan that you've got to have a system, a plan, a commitment. Like I have to state what I'm going to do and when I'm going to do it by and how I'm going to get it done. So I that either has to be stated or implied. Otherwise, the odds are when I go to hold myself accountable or I ask someone else to hold me accountable, I'm going to fall short.
Why? Because every one of us has something on our to do list that's been there for a long time. That actually is not urgent. That actually is not, client’s not waiting for it, team member’s not waiting for it, or maybe a team member is waiting for it, but they know how busy you are, and so they know it's going to keep getting pushed back, because it's not as time sensitive as some of the other things on your to do list. So that very important task or deliverable is mission critical, but it's not on fire. And as agency folks, we have been trained our entire professional careers to run to the fires. Whether it's a client fire, a team fire, an agency fire, and as agency owners and leaders that is hardwired into our system.
So I want to suggest to you that you've got to create your own fire around something that's important to get done that is not necessarily urgent or on fire. And that's a two part – that's a two part task. So part one is you got to have a plan. You have to know what do I what do I need to deliver. When do I need to deliver it by. And most important, how am I going to get that done? And when I say how it's not just an intellectual exercise, but it's baking that into your calendar. It is telling people that you're carving time out for it. It is announcing to yourself and to somebody else that you're getting it done. And it's about finding someone to walk alongside you that's going to hold you to that commitment. So in a lot of cases, it might be somebody who's already done it before, a writing coach, to help you get your book done. It might be, another company that you're paying to launch your podcast. Whatever it is, in many cases, we need a wingman that is going to help us sort of set that goal and then accomplish that goal.
So this week, I want to focus on the first half, which is what's the plan? What is that thing on your to do list? That is really pretty mission critical to your business, but it's probably mission critical in a bigger way, in a more substantial direction changing way. It is writing the book. It is launching a podcast. It is getting the documents ready to apply to be a speaker at a big conference. It's something big that if you don't do it, nobody but you is going to notice. But the business is going to notice. So what is it? When does it have to be done by and give yourself some grace? You know, don't don't do what we all do, which is set the deadline on the day it's actually due. Build in some buffers. And then who's going to be your wingman? Who's going to hold you accountable to actually doing the work, the accountability on getting it done in something different? We'll talk about that in next week's video.
But what's my plan? What do I need to deliver and when? And who's my wingman? Who's already done it before or can coach or encourage or nag me along the way to make sure that I actually honor how I'm going to get it done? And then how do I bake it into my day, my week, my month, and make sure that nothing gets in the way of me getting that done? Try that. And then next week we'll talk about what to do on the other end to hold that accountability front and center so that you honor everything we just talked about this week.
