Just enjoyed a wonderful Sunday Lunch with friends of ours, Ari and Irene. Ari is a very talented Sales Manager and the conversation turned to motivation. I don’t believe that there is such a thing as co-incidence so Ari has inspired me to talk about my passion for motivational techniques during this week’s blog.

When we feel motivated we are able to tap into the fuel that drives our performance. Motivation gives us additionally reasons to solve problems, overcome difficulties and persevere when the going get tough. Motivation can transform an ordinary performance into an extraordinary performance because ultimately if an individual wants to achieve a particular goal badly enough they will be prepared to do whatever it takes to get it. In a sales environment where sales people are often on the receiving end of countless rejections and tend to work mainly alone, the individual’s level of motivation will be demonstrated by the results they achieve, not necessarily instantly yet at some point in the future. An important characteristic required for sales people is that they possess a positive mental attitude to support them through times of stress and difficulties. Yet their attitude is often a reflection of their inner drive; they know what they need to achieve and why achieving it benefits them. Therefore, a Sales Leader who has the ability to ‘ramp up’ their sales peoples’ drive will generally be the Sales Leader who gets better results.

Every individual is completely unique and consequently has a set of values that are unique to them. These are the fundamental principles and beliefs that are considered worthwhile and desirable by the individual and consequently they hold a lot of emotional intensity. Many Sales Leaders make the mistake of trying to motivate their sales team in the same way or based on what is important to the Sales Leader. This approach may work for some people, those that have similar values to their Sales Leader, yet in the main it will fail. The best way to motivate a sales person is to identify what they value as important, in context of their careers, then, use this information to motivate and leverage their performance. The following process enables you to discover what is important to each member of your sales team and is an ideal session to do either during performance reviews or at some point during the accompaniment day:

• Prior to discovering a sales person’s values, ensure that you have built high levels of rapport to encourage open and honest communication. Because a person’s values are very emotive the sales persons needs to feel high levels of trust in their Sales Leader.
• Explain why you are going to ask them questions around what’s important to them. This should always include a benefit to them. For example, “To ensure that I give you the support needed to achieve your target, I’d like to ask you a few questions. Are you ok with this?” or “I want to really understand what motivates you so that I can do what I can to keep your motivation levels high. Therefore, are you comfortable with answering some questions?”
• Ask “What’s important to you in your career?” wait for their answer and write this down using their exact words. Then ask “What else is important to you in your career?” until you have written down approximately 10 -12 of their values. Never pass judgement on what they tell you because this could cause the individual to clam up. Expect long pauses and never prompt them with your own ideas – everything has to come from them.
• Then, ask the individual to number their values according to their importance. For example, 1 = Most important, 2 = Next important and so on until they have numbered every value. You’ll notice that the order of importance for most individuals is different to the order that they first tell you their values.
• Write out the individual’s values in order of important to them and then for each of their values ask “ Why is (value) important to you?” Record their reply. This step is helpful for two main reasons; firstly, you’ll understand what the value means to the individual and you’ll be able to use their words and phrases at future moments in time to motivate them appropriately. Secondly, you’ll be able to identify whether their motivation type is either ’Towards’ or ‘Away From’. Some individuals are motivated by what they can gain; this is called ‘Towards’ motivation. Other individuals are motivated by what problem they can avoid, this is called ‘Away From’ motivation. Both directional types of motivation work effectively and if a Sales Leader is aware of the directional type of each sales person, this improves their ability to motivate individuals in the most effective way. For example, if an individual wants to avoid failing (fear of failure is a common value held by many highly successful sales people according to Zurich Financial Services) then highlighting the success that achieving their targets will give them will not be as powerful as highlighting that feeling of failure that they’ll get if they miss their sales targets.
• Once you’ve completed this target, you then have vital information about what motivates the individual that you can use to help them accomplish different tasks. For example, if an individual’s most important value is recognition and you want them to increase the amount of time they devote to cold calling, you could say, “ Imagine the amount of additional recognition you’ll get from being successful at cold-calling.”

Good luck with the impending birth of your first baby Irene and Ari- he will be a very lucky little boy having you both as parents!