Sales Motivation - what gets you going?

What gets you going? What’s your passion?

Not all salespeople are alike. Being target-driven is a key atribute  but just hitting target may not get them through the slow days. Especially if they aren't hitting target!

Using extra sales motivators will help here – it might be just getting through the calls even if everyone is saying ‘no’ or you get 100 voicemails. But for a moment let’s assume everyone is motivated by hitting targets and performing well.  Everyone values something else, too.

Spend a few minutes mulling over what floats your boat, not at work but personally. Not all the salespeople I have trained are motivated by money. In fact, most people aren’t motivated by money alone (are they, Maslow?) This means the the manager has to find their motivator to help them perform at their best. They are usually motivated by things that money can buy or enable them to do, rather than the money itself.

If your sales leader hasn’t explored this with you  or you're on your own – then do it yourself!

Some examples.

A fairly inexperienced salesperson is saving for a house, she really wants to move, but after student loans and expenses she couldn’t see the possibility so she didn’t bother looking into it.
So, we spent some time in one to one meetings going over what she would need for her deposit. Her homework was to look into government help to buy and schemes to give her a step up the property ladder.
Once we had actual figures in hand we broke them down into realistic amounts to put away each year. Then each quarter. Then each month. We worked out what she would need to sell to make that commission, and if she could save away some of her salary too.

Now, this was really none of my business as her leader, but working with her, learning what was important and helping her set goals, break them down and see that they are achievable both strengthened the trust and bond with us and gave her manageable, personal targets to reach. She has a chart on her desk with little house images on that she colours in when she makes the next chunk of commission. In this job calling is king, so to reach the goals we looked at her KPIs and worked out what calls she needed to make to get the right number of leads to convert into the sales she wanted.

Her call rate increased by 40%.

Another example that always makes me smile was at the start of my sales leadership journey. My wonderful team member Marie-Claire was a diligent worker for our team, following process, putting in the calls and effort and fine at closing deals too. She loved to do a good job and that was enough to carry her most of the way. It took some digging, but finally I hit on a motivator that really got her excited (no judgement please..) – buying overpriced socks from The Sock Shop (now sadly no more). She loved the colourful designs and the treat of going in and choosing from the huge array of foot candy. That’s what she did with her first commission stash. So, we equated each sale into sock value. So one sale of £xx was one pair of these socks. A bigger sale of £xx meant she could go crazy and buy 10 pairs of socks in one hit! What a shopping spree! She never did go and buy ten pairs in one go, but knowing she could, and equating her deals to something she experienced was a fun motivator and when we needed a growth spurt it got her going.

Find out what else motivates you. Sales is a constant challenge, motivation is needed on a regular basis, not just once a year in a review, or even at the end of the quarter when you get your figures. But DAILY. If your manager can’t help (No Fluff can..) then you’re going to have to work on motivating yourself. Think about it. Regularly.