“Accountable: subject to the obligation to report, explain, or justify something; responsible; answerable.” Just the act of holding someone accountable can make a huge difference in their performance. Example: I have a client who for over a month had promised me that she’d make her lead generation calls. We even wrote down the days and times she’d make the calls. Then on our every-other-week calls, she’d report in on her progress, which, to be honest, wasn’t very good. I had thought that the accountability of the calls would be sufficient to motivate her to keep her word. Well, it wasn’t. So we made one small adjustment: she again made the promise to make the calls, specified the date and time, but this time I told her she had to email me as soon as she was done with the calling! We weren’t going to wait for 2 weeks to go by this time. Well, guess what? Just a few hours ago she emailed me to say she had done her 2.25 hours of calling, had 7 conversations with her database, and had produced 1 possible lead! Amazing what accountability can do. So here’s my suggestion: find a buddy, or get an accountability partner, or hire a coach (shameless self-promotion, I know) and hold yourself accountable to a higher standard than before. I promise that you’ll thank me later.
P.S. Just in case you’re wondering, I have 3 coaches that I’ve hired to work with me to hold me accountable (business, sales, and marketing coaches, all with different perspectives and different approaches).