I was recently considering how to characterize forecasting sales activity, essentially forecasting revenue, and how difficult that is.

For a good portion of my professional life, I worked in various capacities of sales; a fundamental aspect of working in sales is the forecast, the sales forecast, which amounts to revenue.

Couple of those comments with my fundamental attitude of optimism, striving for positive perspective, and outcome, one would think that I would be a proponent of ambitious sales forecasting, but that’s not the case. Or rather, that’s not the whole story. Working in sales jobs, Your performance is really a function of how you do in sales activity related to the forecast.

And so the fundamental characterization, the fundamental word to describe any particular goal that is set, is it ambitious, or ridiculous… Two sides of the same coin really, at least in my view.

Nothing wrong with being ambitious. Nothing wrong with setting ambitious goals. It’s a good motivator sometimes.

But at some point if one continues on down the line of ambition, of an ambitious goal, eventually you will reach the ridiculous, that which is really unattainable.

Moral of the story for me, moderate ambition, that’s my preference, to the left and a little lower from the ridiculous.