PSYCHOLOGY
have a compelling reason to get up immediately: to go to his children’s room and turn off the second alarm clock before it went off at 5:15 and woke them up. “Once he set up a compelling reason that made him feel like doing the right thing, he didn’t have to rely on willpower anymore,” he said.
The expert recommends creat- ing your own compelling reasons by reviewing “when you’ve been highly motivated in the past. Write down times in your life when you’ve been really into following through. Next to those instances, write down what was motivating you at the time. It will often be something kind of silly but that’ll give you some clues.” In other words, if last quarter you were really motivated to put in extra hours so you could outsell another salesperson on your team, you can use that knowl- edge to create a compelling reason to follow through now. While creating compelling reasons helps you use the wrong reasons to do the right thing, “leading the horse to water” lowers your resistance to
SELLING TIP
Eight Tips for Sales Managers for Providing a Motivation-Nurturing Environment
For salespeople to be productive, they must be mo- tivated to sell. Motivation is a force from within and, although motivation cannot be artificially induced, a positive environment can help instill motivation in sales- people. Listed below are some tips for managers who want to provide an environment that helps salespeople want to pursue and attain their goals: 1. Get to know each salesperson individually. Under- stand their problems and help with them where you can. Give each salesperson a sense of personal belonging to a greater cause.
2. Treat each salesperson as an individual and not merely as a part of a collective sales force. Give individual praise for achievement, no matter how large or small that achievement may seem.
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following through by reducing the amount of effort involved. To lead the horse to water, simply tell yourself that you don’t have to complete the task; you have only to get started on it.
EASY DOES IT “The idea with this one is that every intention has an easy part and a hard part,” the expert says. “Normally we think of the hard part. Leading the horse to water says that all you have to do is the easy part – then you can stop. This gets Thor out of the way and, in fact, doing the easy part often helps you build up enough momentum to do the hard part, as well. You can use this for cleaning up your office, for example. Tell yourself, ‘I have to spend five minutes cleaning up my office, and, if I want to stop then, I can.’ Thor won’t object to a five-minute job, because that’s easy, but very often, that five minutes will turn into 20 or 30 and, by the time you really want to stop, you’ve made a big dent in the job or finished it completely.” The expert’s third strategy gets you
“to strike while the iron is hot” so you can take full advantage of the fleeting moments when you feel inspired to move mountains. An uplifting speech or an inspiring passage from a book can put you in a motivated mood, but he pointed out that moods inevitably swing, and you have to take action when you do feel like it to help you follow through when you don’t. “When you’re inspired to set
something in place, take action im- mediately so that – when the inspira- tion fades – you still follow through. Strike while the iron is hot instead of thinking that your super-motivated mood will last, because it won’t. Thor is a three-year-old, and three-year- olds are jumping from one thing to another all day long.” When the spirit is willing but the two-part mind rebels, alternatives to willpower can overcome even the most stubborn inner child. Since sales success depends on consistent follow- through, taming Thor and getting him to work with (instead of against) The Wise One puts any salesperson in top scoring position.
3. Stress the status and trust invested in each one as a sales professional.
4. Introduce your salespeople to important people you know who can contribute to enriching their work environment or their sense of accomplishment. This can take the form of secondary introductions like recordings you find beneficial or books you might recommend for increasing sales skills.
5. Let salespeople participate in training sessions, sales meetings, and in setting quotas.
6. Read all reports and comment on them individually and promptly.
7. Maintain an open-door policy with your salespeo- ple. Be available and open-minded when they wish to contact you.
8. When evaluating, stress the individual’s personal growth and development. Encourage it and report on their percentage of production in the company.
Although it is up to each individual to self-motivate, sales managers can be influencing factors by providing a positive environment that encourages motivation and growth.
– SELLING POWER EDITORS
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