What drives you as a sales professional? Is it money, success, the thrill of the game or something else? It’s very easy to think salespeople work for the money and that’s the only thing that motivates them. Yes, money is a motivator, but rarely is it as high as many people expect.
One of the things I’ve found in working with salespeople over the years is that the more successful a salesperson is long term, the higher their level of sales motivation. In addition, it is more likely they are motivated by several things, rather than a single thing.
Ask yourself the question: “What motivates you?” When you answer it this time, do so with a response other than money. It’s my firm belief the real winners in sales are those who are motivated by several things. It might be the thrill of the hunt, helping people and money. It doesn’t matter what it is, but if you can identify three key things that motivate you, I strongly believe you will have a much higher level of success than if you focus solely on one.
The reason I believe this is because we get energy from different things. If we allow ourselves to focus solely on one item (such as money), then when things aren’t going well, we become discouraged very quickly. Whereas, if we have multiple things motivating us, we’ll be more likely to persevere and even thrive during slow times.
Take a few minutes over the next week and list those items that truly motivate you. Don’t limit your thinking at this point. Keep the list with you for the next 60 days and review every 10 days or so with the goal being to see if the items you first listed are still items that motivate you. If they don’t, then begin to cross them off the list.
After 6o days you’ll have a fairly concise list of a few items that truly motivate you. Having seen them every 10 days for the last two months, you will now be able to take the items left on the list and rank them by order in terms of what they mean to you. With that you now have your list of key motivators.
Your next step is to then begin to add 3 to 4 specific things after each motivator that you could do to make the most of that motivator. Now you have in a couple of quick easy steps a “quick guide” to help keep you motivated.
So you tell me… “What motivates you?”
Copyright 2011, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
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