In today’s Tip #8, Carole Mahoney provides tips on motivation and goals.
Are you motivated more by money or by mastery?
Join the discussion below and check how to join her free group coaching every week — for salespeople and for sales managers.
Unbound Growth
Group Coaching for Salespeople
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: Welcome to the Daily Sales Tips Podcast, I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Carole Mahoney. Carole is the founder of Unbound Growth, a scientific sales development firm that eliminates the guesswork of hiring the right salespeople and developing superhero sales teams using a science-based data-driven process that has helped salespeople to achieve 130-160% of quota in less than 6 months with a 98% annual customer retention rate. Here she is with today’s tip on Motivation & Goals:
Carole Mahoney: If there is only one tip that I could give salespeople, sales leaders and entrepreneurs about how to improve their sales, it is this: there is no behavioral change without a goal that stretches you in is personally meaningful. You could easily drown yourself in the amount of research and data that is available today, about how important setting goals that are meaningful, are to make any kind of behavior change. There’s the Meta-analysis that was done by the Journal of Vocational Behavior that shows that intrinsic motivation is a higher predictor of performance and satisfaction on the job. The more people focused on money, the less likely they are satisfying their curiosity, learning new skills or even having fun. And those are the things that make us perform the best. Okay. But sales is a little bit different, right? I mean a salesperson who is in motivated by money is not going to make it.
There is actually data from objective management group that shows from i1.8 million different B2B sales professionals, 82% of the top performers are primarily intrinsically driven and motivated, which means it’s not money that thereafter, but mastery. Now before you go and take that to immediately apply to your business, consider the context if your sales processes long in competitive and complex. A salesperson who was primarily extrinsically motivated by money may not have the patience to wait for a longer sales process to complete. As my friend, Trish Bertuzzi would say, variables matter. But know this, there is no right or wrong way to be motivated. It’s just a matter of identifying the type of motivation that best aligns with who your buyer is and how they buy. Nothing is black and white. We all have these unique combinations of motivations that may change based on our lifestyle or stage of life among other things.
And even though there’s just as much research showing that setting goals is personally meaningful is going to get you to that behavioral change. There’s just as much that shows that the majority of us really don’t do it. Why is it so hard? Why do we put it off? Yes, there’s research that shows procrastination is real because either the fear of failure or because we know that it’s work, but there’s also research that shows if we take specific steps in setting our goals, that we are significantly more likely to reach them. Here they are. First, you have to think about your goals. Not most everybody does that, but it’s the next steps that make you more likely to actually reach your goals. So not only do you need to think about your goals, but you need to write them down. You also need to create action commitments for those goals.
And when I say action commitments, it’s not just “I’m going to get this”, it’s “I’m going to do this, to get that”. In addition to that, you need to share it with someone who is going to be supportive and that you’re going to answer to on a weekly basis. If you’re a salesperson, that means you can leverage your manager or even some of your coworkers to do that. Or if you have a spouse or even family and friends that will hold you accountable. If you’re an entrepreneur, certainly family and friends, but also maybe find a professional group to be a part of that you can share these, whether it’s a mastermind group or some kind of coaching group, and if you’re a sales leader, all the more important for you to be able to meet with your peers and actually get coaching for yourself and how to do these particular things so that you can set the example for your team and help them to walk through the steps.
I often look at motivation this way. If you’re building a house in the country, you can’t just build it wherever you want because you can’t just put the water wherever you want. Like in the city where you just run a pipe in there it is at this particular spot, at this particular address here in the country. You have to first find out if there’s water there for you to be able to build, and if there isn’t water there, you can’t just create it. You’re not Aqua Man. But if it is, then you can channel it and drive it so that you can be able to get water for your house and as a sales leader, you can’t create the motivation in your salespeople, but you can tap into it.
Scott Ingram: What are you tapping into? Which takes us to today’s question: Are you motivated more by money or by mastery? As Carole said, “there’s no right or wrong way to be motivated.” So share yours and read what your peers have to say at DailySales.Tips/8
There you’ll also find links to Carole’s Unbound Growth website and her LinkedIn profile. She also offers two different open group coaching calls every week. One for salespeople and one for sales managers. Both are free. Links to sign up for either one at are DailySales.Tips/8
Then check back in tomorrow for a great tip on getting mentors from my friend Thom Singer in honor of national mentoring month.