January. The start of the year is the season of good intentions and false starts. By this time of the month, most of us have taken our foot off the gas a bit when it comes to personal New Year’s Resolutions, but these can be picked up again at any point in the year.
What’s more of an issue is losing motivation at work, when fresh company budgets and higher targets for the new year clash with the post-Christmas blues, meaning even the best salespeople can quickly feel overwhelmed.
So how do you keep your team motivated? The customary approach in sales is to big up the monetary incentives and try to whip employees into a frenzy of pursuing bigger commissions and bonuses. The problem is, not everyone is motivated by money.
It’s a common misconception that salespeople are driven by money alone. Just as there are charismatic accountants who break the ‘boring’ stereotype, and not all recruitment consultants are overbearing and pushy, salespeople are not a pack of money grabbing wolves.
There are, in fact, many different motivators for work, and any combination of these can apply to salespeople and their leaders. These motivations are not a concious decision, they emerge from a mix of values, personality, expectations and beliefs. Understanding the individual motivations of members of your team, and your own, can make the difficult job of managing different personalities easier, and help them to deliver better results, with less stress and pressure.
Recently, I’ve been delving into what motivates sales professionals in more detail, and as part of that I’ve been chatting with Mark Terrell, who specializes in motivational mapping for reluctant industry leaders. Mark’s diagnostic tools identify 9 different motivations, including recognition, friendships, the need to be seen as the expert or power and controlling of other people. As you can see, these range far beyond simply “desire for more money”, and you may already be able to recognise some of these traits in yourself and your team members.
If you’re having any issues keeping yourself and your team motivated at the moment, I can highly recommend getting in touch with Mark about motivational mapping. By identifying and understanding your team’s motivators, you’ll be able to manage each individual in the most effective way, which will ultimately lead to getting the best results from each individual.
If you need further help taking the stress and overwhelm out of sales or simply want to approach your sales activity differently in 2019, then maybe I can help. Send me a message or call me on 0121 674 4203.
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