On a recent episode of The Sales Hunter Podcast, Mark welcomed Courtney Clark, author of the book Shortcut: How Flexible Goal Setting Outperforms Grit. The conversation focused on why the old playbook of grit and sheer perseverance is no longer enough for sales success.
Courtney brought research and personal experience to the discussion, showing how flexibility, adaptability, and resource management are now the real drivers for sustainable results.
The Myth of Grit and Why Adaptability Matters
A key theme that emerged was the danger of confusing grit with true resilience. Perseverance is valuable, but not when it becomes stubbornness in the face of changing market conditions.
“You can do anything you put your mind to, but from adaptability,” Courtney explained, highlighting that the ability to pivot and adapt is more effective than relentless, single-minded effort. Grit gets all the attention, but adaptability is the differentiator when old strategies stop working.
One concept discussed was the difference between “grit resilience,” (pushing through obstacles) and “growth resilience,” which is about adjusting and reinventing strategy when the situation calls for it. Salespeople often get trapped chasing one “white whale” deal, missing their targets because they overcommit to a single plan at the expense of the bigger picture.
Goal Supersizing and Parallel Plans
The discussion explored how most salespeople confuse goals with plans. Many set linear, one-path goals: book this client, hit this number, and then get stuck when reality doesn’t cooperate.
Several points were raised, including the importance of “goal supersizing.” Instead of thinking only about a dollar figure or a big account, think bigger: What does achieving this mean for your growth, your pipeline, your business? Break out of narrow, step-by-step plans and consider multiple paths to your supersized goal.
Courtney introduced parallel plans: “The more paths, the more roads to your destination, the more certain your arrival.” This approach means creating several strategies that can get you to your big goal, so if one fizzles, the others are already in motion.
Resource Management: Learning to Say No
A major hurdle for many in sales is the temptation to chase every possible deal, stuffing already overloaded pipelines. But more opportunities don’t always lead to more closed business.
Courtney dropped a crucial insight: “Every yes is a no to something else.” Resource management means recognizing that every pursuit has a price. Success comes from protecting time and energy, letting go of deals that aren’t progressing, and clearing the “plugged pipeline” so that real opportunities get the attention they deserve.
Benchmarks and When to Walk Away
The conversation also highlighted the sunk cost fallacy and why most salespeople keep pushing on bad deals far too long. One of the best indicators for shifting tactics is setting clear benchmarks before starting.
Halfway through a timeframe, if you’re less than halfway to the goal, it’s time to reassess. “If you don’t set benchmarks before you’ve achieved a goal, you’re not going to be very good at accurately monitoring your progress once you’re already on the path,” Courtney explained. Implementation mindset makes it hard to self-correct unless boundaries are established up front.
It’s not just about permission to quit; it’s about knowing when to pivot to a new plan or set a fresh, achievable target. “Sometimes giving up and walking away is the right answer,” Courtney said. But walking away shouldn’t mean disengaging entirely; it’s a chance to redirect effort where it counts.
Practical Takeaways for Modern Sellers
- Supersize your goals to focus on the bigger picture, not just the next win.
- Create parallel plans so you always have more than one route to success.
- Use benchmarks to measure progress and know when to quit or pivot.
- Manage your resources vigilantly. Every yes costs you something else.
- Stay motivated with achievable, meaningful targets, even when the original goal shifts.
Sales isn’t just about who hustles hardest or holds on the longest. The top performers are the ones who recognize when adaptability, not grit, is the smarter play. The ones who know that a flexible, resource-conscious plan is the real shortcut to winning in today’s ever-changing market.
Mark Hunter :
Every salesperson struggles with setting goals. But here’s the deal. You set goals, and how flexible are you to adapt or to adjust yourself to what’s happening in the marketplace? Because let me tell you something, the marketplace is changing. With me today is Courtney Clark. We’re going to talk from her new book, Shortcut. Why am I talking? Let’s get the show going.
Courtney Clark :
Right now, you’re listening to the Sales Hunter podcast with Mark Hunter, where the focus is to help you, as a salesman, sell with confidence and intention, integrity. And now here’s your host.
Mark Hunter :
If I were to ask you, how good do your goals feel for this year, how would you respond? If you’re like the majority of salespeople, you’re going, I have no idea. But help us. Courtney Clark is going to help us sort it all out. Courtney, welcome to the show.
Courtney Clark :
So excited to talk to you.
Mark Hunter :
Hey, you wrote a great book. And I tell you what, I read it, and you kind of. You calmed the fear in me, the angst in me, because goal setting. And you really talk about being flexible with goal setting. Okay, talk to us. Because you got salespeople out there who are just angst over the numbers that they have to achieve. Sales managers, same thing. How do we deal with this?
Courtney Clark :
Because, well, I’ve been a salesperson.
Mark Hunter :
Yes.
Courtney Clark :
I wasn’t very good at it, but I was a salesperson, so I understand hitting your numbers. I didn’t actually come at this research as an expert in goals. My background is as an expert in resilience. And I’ve always said all along that I don’t think resilience comes from positivity. You can do anything you put your mind to, but from adaptability. And with that in mind, what I realized is that this current, I’m going to call it an obsession with grit has actually made us less adaptable, especially in the face of change.
Mark Hunter :
Thank you for saying that. Because it is all this grit. We all got to toughen up and get tough and get tough, and all we wind up doing is just freaking out more and more. But you say resilience and adaptability, so. Okay. Some people would say those two words are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Bring them together. Help me.
Courtney Clark :
I’m telling you, it’s a misinterpretation of resilience. A lot of people, the equation looks like resilience equals grit. Just keep going, dig deeper, be tough. It’s not. What I found in my research is that there’s really two spectrums to resilience. There’s grit, resilience that perseverance. But there’s also growth resilience. And that is adapting, pivoting, doing something different when the old ways of working aren’t working anymore.
Courtney Clark :
And that hasn’t gotten as much PR as the grit. Work harder. Quitters never win side of things. So I think we need to balance. It’s not that we don’t want perseverance, of course we do. But are we balancing that perseverance with being flexible?
Mark Hunter :
Well. And are we balancing that perseverance with the. With the think that we may win the battle, but we’ll lose the war because we will literally burn ourselves out? And that’s.
Courtney Clark :
I will tell you, when I started doing this research, I mentioned something to a career coach I knew, and she told me an incredible story that is for salespeople. She had a career coaching client who was with her. He had been in, I believe it was software sales or maybe SaaS. He was a top seller every year. He did great. And he set his sights on this big company, you know, a Fortune 10, a household name company, and that he was going to close a deal with them. It took him three years, and he did. But in the process of closing that piece of business, he shifted his focus away from a bunch of his other business.
Courtney Clark :
He closed a nominal, kind of a small contract with his big white whale, that company that he really wanted to close with, but it didn’t make up for the business he lost, and he ended up getting fired a year later.
Mark Hunter :
Wow. Okay, now let’s. Because this happens, we get so focused. We get so focused on this one goal that we lose sight of the whole thing out there. How do we balance this? How do we.
Courtney Clark :
So what we have to be aware of is that perseverance isn’t always the right answer. We have to pursue the right goals, the. The smart goals, the goals that actually make sense. So one of the things that I tell people is best to do is realize that a lot of what we call goals are actually plans. If there’s just one way. I know, I know, but stick with me. If there’s just one way to get there, right? If it’s just like step A, step B, or like, I’m going to book this client, that’s a plan. If it’s just one straight path, that is a plan, not a goal.
Courtney Clark :
So I tell people to undergo a process called goal supersizing. Think about your goal. Not just like X$, but bigger. But it’s like, no. What is the goal mean? You ever, ever read anything by Dan Pink?
Mark Hunter :
Oh, yes, Daniel Pink. Excellent.
Courtney Clark :
Yeah. What he’s. What is the goal of the goal? So that’s goal supersizing. So, you know, a bigger goal might be, I want to book, I want to close bigger companies. But if you make it just like this one company, then what’s going to happen is you become so focused that you expend all your resources towards this goal and you don’t have those resources to spend other places.
Mark Hunter :
You know what? I’m visualizing this picture right now of the dog that chases the car day after day after day. And one day they actually do catch the car. Then they don’t know what to do with it because they literally were so focused on one. And I see this with salespeople. They get fixated on, I have to make X number of calls a day. I have to make X number calls a day. But they never realize how that fits into the bigger picture and what it’s supposed to lead to.
Courtney Clark :
Right, that’s exactly right. That, like a strategy is not a goal. One plan is not a goal. Hitting your numbers is not a goal. That’s a tactic that leads you towards a bigger goal. So I, you just, you have to start thinking bigger. And then once you’ve supersize your goal, then you can build what I call parallel plans. So parallel plans are.
Courtney Clark :
Think back to math class. There are multiple ways to achieve your larger. Your new larger goal. And the best part about that is that if any one strategy, right, if any one plan is no longer available to you or doesn’t seem like a good idea anymore, you run out of resources to put towards that, that’s okay because there’s other parallel plans and they’re all going the same direction. The more paths, the more roads to your destination, the more certain your arrival.
Mark Hunter :
I love this because at the beginning of the quarter, when you’re developing your numbers, when you’re, when you’re looking at, you’ve got to really kind of over develop. You have to over develop because again, not everything’s going to happen. Not everything’s going to fall into place perfectly. Salespeople get themselves into trouble when they, I need this one deal to close, and if it doesn’t close, I miss my number. Well, hello, you didn’t have enough plans back at the beginning. Now here’s the challenge, though. How do you balance when you only have so much time in the day and you’re telling me I got to have more plans and I don’t have enough time to execute even the ones I’ve got now? You’re saying I need more. Help me, help me understand that, believe
Courtney Clark :
it or not, this strategy is actually protective of your resources because it allows you to shift your focus away from what’s not working. But you have to be willing to let go of what’s not working. You have to identify what isn’t working and then shift your resources to what is working. For me, I am a four time cancer survivor, so talk about being protective of my time. I am protective of my time in a very global sense. And that’s part of what really attracted me. When I started doing this research, I was like, oh, this, this really vibes with what I feel, that we only have so much time, so much money, so, so many, so much support. Right.
Courtney Clark :
All of the resources that you could put towards any goal. And if you waste them by chasing something because you’re supposed to or because you said last quarter that you were going to do it and you can’t let go, then, yeah, you may find yourself adding and adding and adding, but never subtracting. This is how you subtract. You let go of the stuff that’s not paying off. It helps you actually prioritize.
Mark Hunter :
Okay. What you just described is a perfect example of what people need to do with their pipeline because they just keep putting stuff into their pipeline and. And it becomes plugged. It becomes plugged. And then you have a sewer line. You just have a sewer line and it’s plugged, nothing is moving, and you don’t have the capacity to be able to unplug it. So what you’re saying is I put this in, but I got to be prepared to take stuff out. And you have, as a wartime cancer survivor, you know resilience better than anybody.
Mark Hunter :
I mean, you had to practice that time and time again to be able to survive through that. Yeah.
Courtney Clark :
Yep.
Mark Hunter :
So, yeah. Okay, you’re about ready to share something? Go ahead.
Courtney Clark :
Well, I was just gonna say the signs are often there and we don’t listen to them. Well, sometimes that is truly not listening to a prospect. If they’re telling you, you know, it’s not gonna be. It’s not going to be this year, man, then you know, it’s. It might hurt to back burner them if you were putting all your eggs in that basket. But like, that’s a really obvious sign. But your time matters, your focus matters. I have a friend, she gave me one of the greatest lessons when I asked her, amber, how do you do it all? Because I mean, she just truly by 30 years old, right? Husband, two kids, just promoted to the C suite on two different nonprofit boards of directors.
Courtney Clark :
Anna just gotten her master’s degree. And I was like, dude, how do you do it all? And I think I was expecting an answer about time management. And she said, she taught me resource management. She said every yes is a no to something else. And I may not even know what I’m saying no to right now, but I’m going to have to say no to something. So I’m really careful with my yeses. And that has stuck with me all these years. Every yes is a no to something else.
Courtney Clark :
Every pursuit has a price.
Mark Hunter :
I love what you’re saying there because this is the challenge with salespeople in that they can’t say no. They just keep putting more and more things into their pipeline. And like you said earlier, if the deal isn’t going to close this year, you’re right, I got to get it out of my pipeline. I got to move it someplace else because I can’t expend this friend of yours who was able to accomplish so many things by the age of 30, she had to say no to far more than she said yes to. Which I think brings up another point that we’re better off focusing on less than we are more. But you have plans. So which is it? Is it focusing more time on less or is it having more plans? Or you know, again,
Courtney Clark :
everybody’s mileage may vary, but I think if you can start to think big picture to that super sized goal, that’s going to help you understand. Do I need to be focusing on quality or do I need to be focusing on quantity? Not for me to say where any person might be in their work right now, but you need to really get a sense of the big picture and then be willing to go, okay, what isn’t actually moving me forward on that? We found, when we did our research, we found some actually really interesting sales specific information. We asked if you were more than halfway through the year but less than halfway to your sales goal, what would you do? What do you think? The most common answer was, Mark, just hustle harder.
Mark Hunter :
That’s what people would say, right?
Courtney Clark :
Keep doing the same thing over was the number one response. Which maybe they meant do it harder. But they didn’t say like turn up the gas. They said just keep doing the same thing. But the same thing got you to deliver the results.
Mark Hunter :
But this is what more than halfway. But so many times that’s how we respond. If we just do more of it. If we just keep. But doing the same thing is going to get you the same results.
Courtney Clark :
The same result. But it’s not just salespeople, it is all of us. We’ve had this cultural conditioning that quitters never win, that if you just work really hard, it’s bound to pay off. So just keep pushing on that brick wall and maybe something will happen. It totally tracks across all industries. 67% of the workforce said that they would not abandon a goal even if they knew it was no longer achievable.
Mark Hunter :
Wow. Now, here’s the deal. Many of those people have those goals because that’s what their boss told them their goal is.
Courtney Clark :
Yes.
Mark Hunter :
Okay, so what do I do?
Courtney Clark :
Right, so if it’s not your goal, that’s a little bit trickier. But remember, if you start thinking in terms of that super size goal, all of a sudden it becomes easier because if you’ve been given a goal, it’s not your goal. You can take that information to your boss, your leadership team, and be like, okay, talk to me about why this is our goal, because this might not be possible, but maybe this is possible. And then they go, oh, well, yeah, that actually does serve the larger vision here. So we’re okay with that. Or you go, they just. They are committed to sticking with this. Right? This is in the strategic plan or whatever.
Courtney Clark :
And I know it’s not going to be possible. So then what I recommend people do is they create their own goal to the side of it. Like, okay, listen, I know that this goal isn’t achievable, but maybe my goal is I want to create inroads with this other division that will allow us to work with them in the future. Or I want to show that I can lead a team. Or like, you have to create goals now for yourself so that you can have something you can accomplish even if you know that goal is probably not the right goal.
Mark Hunter :
Thank you for saying that. Because I see so many salespeople. What they do is they, oh, they look at the big thing and then they ultimately just give up and walk away. But you’re saying, no, set a separate goal, because again, we stay more motivated, we stay more in the game when we have a goal that we can achieve. And setting that goal, I think is going to help us get closer. We may still miss it, but we may not miss it as, as big as we would be if we walked away.
Courtney Clark :
And what you said there is really important too, about giving up and walking away. Because sometimes giving up and walking away is the right answer. And we don’t do that. We give up and we just stand There. And then sometimes we give up and walk away because we don’t know what else to do. And so that was my goal in writing this book, was helping people understand which times it makes sense to persevere. And when does it make sense to pivot so that we don’t just go, oh, yeah, it’s, you know, okay, it’s okay to give up on goals. Let’s go home and eat a pint of ice cream and watch Netflix.
Courtney Clark :
But there’s a visual easily. But we do want to let go when we need to so that we can then set new goals that are the right goals. And so I think it’s really important that we arm people not just with the knowledge of, like, oh, yeah, okay, it is okay to give up, but when and how.
Mark Hunter :
So any advice when and how to quit or walk away?
Courtney Clark :
Yes. Oh, my gosh. Well, so much advice. We talked a little bit about looking at some of those warning signs. Right? Halfway is a great warning sign if you are halfway to your goal. But if you’re more than halfway to time but less than halfway to your goal, it’s a sign. So those are called benchmarks. I highly recommend I get a lot of people going like, oh, I don’t need benchmarks.
Courtney Clark :
I’ll know if I’m being successful, or I can’t set benchmarks until I’ve already started moving towards my goal, because I just don’t know what the right benchmarks would be. I don’t recommend that. Because when you’re thinking about a goal, when you’re deciding on a goal, that is called evaluative mindset. Right? You’re evaluating it. The second you take one step towards your goal, you flip into implementation mindset. And implementation mindset is like the Energizer Bunny from those old battery commercials, right? It just wants to keep going. It does not want to be questioned or. Or evaluated or stopped.
Courtney Clark :
That’s where sunk cost fallacy comes from.
Mark Hunter :
Wow. Wow. Okay.
Courtney Clark :
Yeah. So if you don’t set benchmarks before you’ve achieved a goal, you’re not going to be very good at accurately monitoring your progress once you’re already on the path.
Mark Hunter :
And I do believe that by having the benchmarks, it allows you to stay motivated because you’re going for short, little incremental wins that allow you to succeed. And again, you’re going to then see how your plans, like you laid out several times here, have really helped. This is absolutely great, Courtney.
Courtney Clark :
That’s how you get feedback in the process.
Mark Hunter :
Yes, it is. Hey, your book, the Shortcut How Flexible Goal Setting Outperforms Grit. Where do people get it? How do people get in touch with you?
Courtney Clark :
You can get it at any bookseller that you want. It’s on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. But honestly, you don’t have to buy it right now. Get a free chapter first. Go to shortcutbook.com and download a free chapter. See if it resonates with you. So go there and get it. Check it out first.
Mark Hunter :
Shortcut.com. i love it.
Courtney Clark :
Shortcut book.com.
Mark Hunter :
excuse me? Shortcut book.com. i was going to say, how did you get shortcut book? Wow. That’s pretty amazing. Yeah. Anyway, anyway, thank you.
Courtney Clark :
I’m lucky, but not that lucky.
Mark Hunter :
Yeah. We’ve been talking today with Courtney Clark, author of the book Shortcut How Flexible Goal Setting Out Performs or, you know, outperforms Grit. I love the book and you’ve got so many reviews. The book is. I love the book. I read it. Like I said, you calmed me down. Hey, you’ve been listening to the Sales Hunter podcast.
Mark Hunter :
Two episodes a week. One one like this, where we do a deep dive with a subject matter expert. Courtney Clark certainly fills the bill on that one. Second episode is just me, where I unpack a single topic. Why do we do the show? It’s for one reason. To help you see and achieve what you didn’t think was possible. Do me a favor. Leave me a review on your favorite podcast app.
Mark Hunter :
And after you bought the book, Shortcut, make sure you pick up my new book, Integrity for Selling. I’m Mark Hunter, the sales center. Thank you, Courtney. Great selling.
