Motivation

What’s the difference between a motivated salesperson and the rest of the sales population? Is motivation enough to become successful? What about skills? Are superior skills enough to assure success? If you have superior skills and motivation will that guaranty success?

The most recent post to my Understanding the Sales Force Blog was the Top 10 Factors in Getting Salespeople to Overachieve. Those of you in management may want to check that out. For all of you salespeople I present the 7 Factors that you can control, since the other 3 must be controlled by management.

I evaluated a salesperson who was highly regarded by his company. The evaluation indicated that he had little in the way of hunting or closing ability, possessed all of the biggest selling weaknesses and had conditional commitment. Why was he so highly regarded?

One of the weaknesses that plague salespeople is when they become emotionally involved. This isn’t when salespeople get too close to their prospects, customers and clients, but it is when they react emotionally.

As we approach the end of the year it’s time to do some goal setting. For most salespeople it’s writing a list of things they would like to accomplish. That’s a very loose form of goal setting. Loose because it doesn’t have an accomplish by date, it doesn’t detail how it will be accomplished or even if it can be accomplished, and doesn’t have provisions for following through or accountability.

As we start the New Year we think about what we can accomplish this year that we didn’t accomplish last year. We think about earning more money, closing more sales and being more effective and efficient. How would you like to easily increase your earnings by 25% – 50% this year? It’s not difficult and you don’t have to change.

Last August I wrote this article on Urgency. It’s probably a good idea to review it if you read it then and you’ll definitely want to start there if you haven’t read it. I’d like to expand on Urgency and give you an exercise to measure your own level of urgency.

Continuing with our series on Urgency, today I’d like to talk about Urgency and your emotions. Jim Sasena, my director of operations at Objective Management Group, called my attention to the following matrix:

Every once in a while an unusual case of urgency will overcome a salesperson, often brought on by a need for sales, money or recognition. Whatever the reason, this urgency to sell usually creates a change in behavior. What would you do if you absolutely had to sell something – soon?

Last Saturday, in blizzard-like conditions, we left Boston for a much needed family vacation. We arrived in the Bahamas three hours later to find sunny, tropical, 90 degree temperatures. Blizzard to Tropical in three hours got me to thinking, as usual, about selling which, for a lot of salespeople, has become more difficult in the past 90 days.