The first six(6) months of 2010 are gone never to return. Maybe some of you right now are wiping your hand across your forward muttering some beneficial or not so beneficial words under your breath.  For some the results (achieving sales targets) have been better than 2009 and for others worse.  This ending begs the [...]

Strange. “Selling is like life which is like selling.” Bold — Yes, I know…. And oh so very exciting… (grinding teeth sound) And so, when the vast editing team here at SalesBloggers.com decided to ask us to write about Sales Metaphors in the grand month of June, I had to resist the urge to throw [...]

Surprisingly, I run across a lot of sales people who don’t invest in their own development.  They say, “I’ve been through all the training programs, I can’t learn anything new,”  “I’m an experienced and successful (??) sales person, why do I need to learn anything new?”  Frankly, I don’t waste a lot of my time [...]

Ask any business owner to sales professional how busy they are and you will receive usually in great detail what is happening in their corner of the world.  From non-communicative potential customers (a.k.a. prospects) to demanding sales managers to all those other family and friend commitments, the average sales person does appear to have a [...]

NCAA Basketball has a tremendous impact on my schedule starting now.  I’m looking at the schedule, kind of planning my time backward.  According to the NCAA Basketball site, final selection is on March 14, Opening Round Game is March 16, Fourth Round Completes on March 28 and the final four on April 3rd and 5th.

I’m getting my schedule ready in anticipation.  I think of the teams–all aiming to be part of March Madness.  Actually, they started months ago in their training.  Their seasons are just starting, each building a record of wins–hoping to develop a track record that enables them to qualify and compete in March Madness, each hoping to be in the final four.  Each team has to focus both on today–practicing, competing, and winning.  Each team has their eye on March, they know what they do today lays the groundwork for March. They are looking at their January and February schedules, preparing and strategizing for the teams they will compete against, knowing those performances impact that great event in March!

Oh wait—this is supposed to be an article about sales, sorry I got diverted.  Let me get back on target and talk about sales.  But isn’t what the NCAA basketball teams are going through similar to what we as sales people are going through?  Don’t we have to balance both our short term goals—winning every deal that we are competing for today, but laying the ground work for the deals we know we need to win in January, February, March, ……

Our success today impacts our ability to be successful in the coming months.  We need to focus on closing business today, our companies need it, our managers are looking for a great year end.  However, we need to keep an eye on the future.  Are we doing the right things today that enable us to compete and win in March?  For us in sales, this means looking at our prospecting, account development, territory development, and qualifying.  Are we identifying the opportunities today that enable us to be in the game in  March? 

Teams that do great in December, but fall apart later in the season don’t get to the final four.  Like those teams, doing great this month, having a strong end to the calendar year, doesn’t mean we will continue to do well.  If we aren’t identifying and developing the opportunities that will close in January, February, and March, we won’t be in the game.

The only difference between sales and NCAA Basketball, is that for us, after March Madness, comes April Angst, May Mayhem, June Jamming…..  While closing deals today, we have to lay the groundwork for the future.  Do you have a strategy that will get you to “March Madness?”  Make sure you don’t have just a great December and fall apart for the rest of the season.

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Far too many salespeople turn to their boss or company for their personal motivation to be successful in sales. This is a huge mistake, as salespeople need to be responsible for their own motivation if they want to become successful.

You might have had a sales manager or boss that was an excellent motivator in your past or you might even have one in the present. While there is nothing wrong this, you can never count on it or expect it from your management team. Just like your success, you must own and be responsible for keeping yourself motivated.

A lack of motivation is usually the result of not having goals. If you have been planning goals for your sales career and still find yourself not having the proper motivation, chances are that your goals are either too obtainable or they are not very realistic within the timeframe you have given them. Perhaps it is time that you access your current goals and put some time aside for goal setting.

Having a career in sales is a difficult. Anybody who has worked in sales capacity knows that very well. Even the most optimistic and successful salespeople wake up to days where it is hard for them to get motivated. But make no mistake; these same sales superstars understand that their motivation is their own responsibility.

Putting your own success, motivation, or happiness in the hands of others is always a bad idea. It is like the voter who relies on a politician to bring them economic prosperity within his or her term. It could be the husband or wife who relies completely on their partner to make them happy. In the real world it just doesn’t happen, that same voter, husband, or wife will always be disappointed with the results, if there are any to speak of in the first place. When we decide to own responsibility for ourselves, we take action. And action will eventually lead to the success we are on the path to finding.

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Two weeks ago I wrote a post called What Is The Primary Role Of A Sales Manager?. In that post I basically asserted the primary role of a sales manager is to facillitate an enviroment where people can be productive, but in retrospect I missed one key point. In addition to facillitating the proper environment free of distraction you also need to properly motivate your staff. I’m not going to rehash the different ways sales people can be motivated because Skip Anderson did such a great job in his post “Dear Sales Manager: Please Motivate Me” (honestly it’s the post I had planned to write… I guess it pays to be earlier in the rotation!). What I will do instead is add to both my previous post and build off of Skips a bit for you.

So we are now moving towards a drama free environment that is free of distraction, and we now recognize the different types of motivation, but how do we use this knowledge to motivate our staff? It starts by getting to know them in their one on one meetings, asking good questions, and listening.

I try to do a one on one with every member of my staff every week and we cover 3 topics: A brief discussion of their funnel and conversions plus whatever else I feel is important that week, next we talk about what they want help with, and the final 10 minutes is to talk about whatever we want and can cover anything from family to football. These discussions are important, and no one part is more important than any other… it is the trust and relationship you build in this process that are going to make it easier to have the difficult discussions later on… Finally the information you learn about your staff through this process will be invaluable to you later on when you are trying to motivate your staff.

To close out this topic I’ll share with you some insight I gained from one of my own managers back when I was a new salesperson.

My wife and I were planning on having a baby, but it was very important to both of us for her to be a stay at home mom (meaning I needed to earn a lot more money). However, my primary motivation was recognition and ego. I was winning regional contests regularly and was far and ahead the leading person in my location so both of these needs were being fulfilled completely… However, my manager recognized that there was untapped potential in me and that I was easily capable of producing even more than I currently was. I just wasn’t… and she couldn’t figure out why. I was basically complacent in my current position because I was kicking everyone’s @$$ around me, making great money and having a good time. No amount of feeding the ego, or giving praise and recognition helped, but there was something we were both missing. While it was clear I did not place my own salary as a determining factor of my self worth there was a untapped source of motivation. I wanted my wife to be a stay at home mom and for that I needed to earn a bit more than I was for us to be comfortable. To cut to the chase, once my manager pointed this fact out to me I was off to the races… I set new records, increased my salary and got 2 promotions all in about 18 months.

I tell this story because it’s important to recognize that many sales people only know part of the story about what motivates them, and while money still wasn’t my motivation it was the only thing that could feed what was… My family.

If my manager had not had years of quality one on one time with me we would have never came to that conclusion and we would probably both still be where we were then happy and complacent. Remember motivation is not something we do only for the team… The biggest bang for your buck comes from individual interactions that can only be achieved by regular, honest, one one interaction.

Takeaways: Think about your team and reflect on what motivates each of them as individuals. Now think about your team as a whole what motivates the group? Are you having weekly one on ones? Why not? What are the potential benefits of spending this one on one time with each of them? Do you have people that could produce more but are not? What could you do differently for that individual that would help them move forward?

For some more great information on this topic check out these two podcast episodes:

Steve Farber: Greater Than Yourself and Will Fultz: Rewarding Top Producers

Have a great rest of the week and happy selling everyone!

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About a month ago I went to the garden centre and purchased some seeds. I planted the seeds in a tray with some top grade compost and placed it in a prominent position in the green house making sure every day that the compost was watered enough and not dried out. Short of singing to it every day, I provided all the ingredients necessary for growing healthy plants. Yet, weeks later nothing grew. With a little disgust I dug up the seeds and found out that they were barren – I had wasted weeks trying to grow something that wouldn’t grow. No matter how much I provided the right environment, I was never going to get a result.

The analogy to be drawn is that in some ways people in general need to have that initial spark within themselves that you can motivate. There are many ways of motivating people to succeed but the kernel or spirit of success comes from within. Very deep, but you can motivate as much as you like but if a person you are trying to motivate isn’t inclined to improve or change or try… then you will undeniably waste your time.

The most productive and successful people in any field are the ones who are personally driven; they need little encouragement because they already have the ambition, the drive, the will to achieve. However, along the way they have learned from their mentors and have been encouraged and motivated to learn until they realised a certain truth, that they were incredibly capable people in their respective field. The confidence you have that you know you are good at something, you have the tools to make things happen and that you possess the skill to fulfil is one of the greatest motivators – and ultimately that realisation has to come from the individual and no one else.

What can be done to help those who haven’t attained this confidence? The greatest asset one can give any person is a business environment where that person can learn, build and realise. I was drawn to a particular article this week courtesy of Christian Maurer on twitter (@camaurer) on HP’s reaction to motivating sales people in the recession. I was mentally applauding the attitude that a corporate company could take by making a ‘human’ decision to revise sales targets and create the opportunity that a recession provides in learning. Many companies now are responding to the recession by offering more pressure and the weaker, newer, greener, potential sales people are being driven out before they have had a chance to bloom. The HP case acknowledges that in a recession the ones who are being de-motivated are the sales people – the life blood of the company – putting more pressure on them isn’t motivating but disheartening. In this case, HP have created a work atmosphere where sale people have the power and self-motivation to learn and prosper and what could be more motivating than that?

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#sales When we seek a seller of the new, a prerequisite must be passion. This individual should seem eager to get out of bed in the morning; even if they were in prison. The sales evangelist is self motivated. The statement alone is redundant. What need be done is not to inspire, but to make every effort not to derail a super charged bolt of accomplishment.

So, instead of discussing ways to motivate, instaed I wanted to deliver the top 10 ways to de-motivate a Sales Evangelist. Her we go:

1. Promise and do not deliver. You get two chances to do this, but after one, you have lost all credibility as a leader. The second time will shift motivation to a new job hunt. So do not say its in the next release; or you are working on it and will have it on Monday….unless it is true.

2. Lie. This is a one shot wonder. Get caught lying and your Sales Evangelist will no longer rally to the cause. Why? It is faith that binds them to the selling of the new. Faith that carries their word and that is bond. They will not support a liar.

3. Curry favor to the undeserving. If you plan to play favorites, make it on stack rank and effort alone.

4. Keep them in the dark when it matters. If it is going to help business, tell them everything. Transparency is the new black, and it is also the way to make some money.

5. Belittle or dismiss them in front of prospects and customers. That motivation to find a new job will soon follow.

6. Belitte or dismiss them in front of their peers or other employees. Same as #5

7. Interrupt them while they are working with prospects. Not direct belittling, and may not get them job hunting, but a serious demotivator.

8. Abruptly change their expectations. Territory, vertical, quota, etc… While you are dealing with an adaptive animal, these changes should be discussed in a consultative and preemptive manner. Change should be explained and placed on a timeline.

9. Show that you are not sure the direction you want to go in. The Sales Evangelist is far too busy tilting at windmills and falling on swords to have doubt in the leadership team.

10. And finally, do not pay them as promised. Never be late with a paycheck or change commissions mid stream. This is just plain rude and undeserving of the seller of the new.

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Professionals Need Motivating Too!

Professional Services are somewhat unusual in that the key sales tasks are almost always carried out by non-salespeople: the professionals who will supervise or perform the piece of work being bought.

As a result, what motivates them is often quite different from what motivates “normal” salespeople. Often, for example, by the time they’ve reached a stage in their career where business development is a key part of their role; they are already earning a very comfortable salary. They certainly aren’t in the same position as a commission-only salesperson who needs to bring in business to eat.

That’s not to say that money isn’t a motivator at all – but it’s often not the most important one for most professionals. Nor, surprisingly, is the role of sales in your chances of being promoted to partner.

When professionals are surveyed, the two factors which regularly emerge as being the most important for them in their career are the ability to work on interesting and challenging assignments, and to work with clients they like and respect.

How can this be used to motivate them to sell?

Well, a factor often overlooked by professionals reluctant to get involved in business development is that it gives them control over their destiny. If you can sell, you can ensure you work on interesting assignments for good clients. If you can’t sell you have no option but to work on the assignments others sell – which may well not be for the sort of clients you want to work for, or on the sort of topics you want to work on.

When professionals understand this they are often much more motivated to get involved in sales than before. They suddenly realise how effective selling can make their “real job” of delivery so much more enjoyable and interesting. And over time, they often come to realise that selling actually is their “real job” and can be even more enjoyable and interesting that delivery.

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