Do you push on the 1st or the 31st?

Yesterday was the last day of the month.  All over my Facebook feed were direct marketers pushing very hard to make their monthly goals.  This happens every month.  They casually work their business throughout the month and then frantically market the last few days of the month.  Then they take a break the first day of the month and the cycle begins again.

What would it look like if the energy that was put in at the end of the month was put in, beginning the 1st day of the month?  If everybody in direct sales put the energy into meeting their big goals at the beginning of the month hitting those marks early on then making every sale or recruit gravy after that.

I get that we all do direct sales in order to work around our schedules.  I get that those who are the most successful set big goals.  My question is why wait to the end of the month to push for those goals?  Wouldn't it be wonderful to set a goal, meet it early on and then casually work your business the rest of the month?  How much stress could we relieve if we hit the mark for getting the bills paid within the first week instead of pushing at the end when you haven't reached it?

I personally don't set sales goals or recruiting goals.  We can not control what other people decide and if someone is not interested I am certainly not going to waste my time overcoming objectives and convincing people they need what I have to offer.  There are a lot of people in the world and its better to look elsewhere than to pursue someone who has to be convinced.  People either want something or they don't.  Yes they can change their mind and that is the beauty of relationship marketing.  You maintain the relationship even after the no and then if in the future they change their mind they know that you are available.  If they begin to have questions then they know you are there to answer.  Its better to have them come to you than chase a road going nowhere.

I like to set goals that I have control over.  How many phone calls will I make?  How much time will I spend developing relationships?  How many networking meetings will I attend?  How much training will I do?  etc.  Keeping my focus on what I can do and then actually doing it will ultimately lead to the sales and recruits that I want.  Rome was not built in a day and neither is a successful business.  It is the consistent work happening daily that will get you where you want to go.

So push on the 1st or push on the 31st.  I say push on the first.  If you hit your goal early you can make the choice to continue to push past the goal or back of a be more casual.  Then you know you should make your goal higher for the next month.