By Mitch York 1

A great inspiration came today, as it so often does, from one of my entrepreneur coaching clients: How do you make sure you reach an important goal–in this case doubling sales in the second half of the year vs. the first half? Here’s a nifty idea involving four wheels and your driveway.

If you are moving up in the world, getting higher-value clients all the time, but still driving a six-year-old Honda Civic, the answer may be the one my client came up with: Reach the goal and give yourself a reward that fits the accomplishment and where it takes you and your business.

My client’s reward: the 4.0-liter, V-8, 414 horsepower BMW M3 Convertible above. This goal and the car are not an abstraction. I am completely convinced he as good as owns this car right now. He regularly calls his dealer salesperson to ask him, “How’s my new car doing?” even though he won’t be “picking it up” until January. I’ve already reserved a cruise on the first sunny day after he’s got it.

This is the same client who recently needed to reach a particular business objective and wrote a check for $1500 to a political candidate he detested; gave the check to his best friend and told him to mail it if he didn’t reach his goal within a specified time period. He reached the goal and the money went to buy a new wardrobe.

A great by-product of setting an ambitious sales goal is that is forces the entrepreneur to evaluate all aspects of the business. Driving top-line sales is obviously the most important objective. But speeding up accounts receivable, building an active and efficient referral network, engaging in new business development activities that will spur revenue growth, getting clients to use new automated systems and tools to manage projects–all go a long way to making it possible to reach a stretch sales goal.

Have any other creative ideas for entrepreneurial self-rewards? Send them my way.

Contributing blogger Mitch York is a personal friend of The VAR Guy. York coaches executives who are evolving into entrepreneurs. Find York — and his personal blog — at www.e2ecoaching.com.