So many of us want so much - new cars, homes, vacations, clothes or just some extra time. The sales profession can give it all to us. The problem is most people don’t have a plan to get there.

What does it take to have some measure of control over the entire process?

Written goals, objectives and tasks help significantly.

Keeping daily to do lists is a good start. But what about long-term things to do and things to get? Those are the things that help to remind, reinforce and keep you motivated and focused on achieving your objective.

Keeping a sheet of monthly, quarterly, and yearly sales and personal goals gives us something to measure our progress against. By breaking down our objectives into time-benchmarked goals and tasks, we begin to understand the road we need to take to achieve them.

Let’s say for example, you want to increase your income by eighteen thousand dollars a year, add twenty new clients and buy a new computer. On a sheet of paper write those and any other goals you want to accomplish for that year in list form at the top of your page. Under those goals, list what tasks you have to do to achieve them.

You should then figure out how many sales, calls and appointments you will need to add each month to obtain your goal. By breaking it down into monthly increases of fifteen hundred dollars and notating what tasks it will take to reach that number on a monthly goal sheet, your road map will become much clearer and a lot easier.

I also break my year in half to give myself a six month benchmark. Many day timer/ day runner type appointment calendars have forms that help you plan and guide you through the process. The trick is sticking to it.

Consider telling your spouse, kids, significant other, co-worker, coach, or anyone else with whom you share a valued relationship. That way you’ve connected with a person to whom you’ll be accountable.

Having written sales goals not only makes them concrete and specific, it also helps set a tone that will transfer into all other aspects of your life. Being organized sure beats chaos any day!

There is an interesting story about a class at Harvard that was surveyed while still at school. It seems the researchers found that only three percent of the class had actually had written goals for their future. The other ninety seven percent were like most of the world, taking life as it came.

Years later that same class was surveyed again.

The results astounded the researchers. The survey showed that the three percent who had taken the time to write down their goals when they were in college, had amassed more wealth than the other ninety seven percent combined!

Being self directed, creating accountability, breaking down your sales goals into realistically achievable segments and planning out the bigger picture, can give the sales professional the road map needed to achieve success.

Dan Goldberg, MBA, is President of Dan Goldberg Consulting L.L.C. a training, coaching and business development firm located in the Philadelphia, PA area. He is the founder and former owner of "For Eyes" the highly successful international optical company and an internationally recognized keynote speaker. Dan is the author of the book "Stand Back A Second, Just don't fall off the edge," and of "The Six Steps To Solid Sales Success" and "The Seven Elements Of Successful Management" programs. He is Executive-In-Residence at Kutztown University and has been the subject of stories in Newsweek, Business Week, Playboy, Successful Business, Investor’s Business Daily, major newspapers in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Boston, Baltimore, Miami, San Francisco, Oakland, St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles and many other national and local publications. In addition, Dan has appeared on Good Morning America and other national and local television and radio programs. You can contact him at dg@dangoldberg.com, visit his website at http://www.dangoldberg.com or reach him at (215) 233-5352