I’m writing this article on November 10th 2024. Recently I’ve had A LOT of people asking me how to stay motivated. Whether it’s the very contentious election that’s still wrapping up, at least on the House side, or the fact that we’re getting to the end of the year and the holidays, I’m not quite sure. Either way, here are some ideas on how to show up with some motivation.
First, there are four forms of motivation: external negative, external positive, intrinsic, and peer. The best and potentially most powerful is the third one: intrinsic. That’s internal motivation otherwise known as your why or, why do you do what you do? Why do you get out of bed in the morning, why do you go to work, or why do you work out and eat right? Answers might be to provide for your family, to buy a dream house or car, to go on a dream vacation, or to stay healthy to be able to impress someone or fully enjoy all of the previous items mentioned for as long as possible. Bottom line here: what do you want out of life that your sales career will provide the money for?
Next, you can use external positive motivation to get you moving. External positive is a reward you give yourself for hitting a goal. An example is buying something you really want like a nice watch or something bigger like a car, depending upon the size of the goal. If you want to get the family involved, have a family trip to Hawaii as the payoff for achieving a big goal, or going out to eat at a nice restaurant for a smaller goal.
Another form of external positive motivation is to realize that every call, regardless of what happens, puts money in your pocket. Figure out how much money you make on a sale and how many calls it takes you to get to the sale, and then break that down to how much money you make per call. So, if it takes ten prospects to get a sale and ten calls to get a prospect, that means it takes 100 calls to make a sale. If every sale is worth $1000, than every call, regardless of what happens, equals $10.
External negative is a penalty for not doing something. This one you’ll usually base on activity goals, for example a set number of prospecting calls for the week or month. The reason you focus on activity in this case versus a result is because you can always control activity, you can’t necessarily control the results. An example of external negative motivation is: if you don’t hit the number of prospecting calls for the month, you have to give $1000 to a political candidate you can’t stand. It can also be going without something you enjoy like a certain dessert for a week or two.
Peer motivation can come in the form of competing with others in the office. You could challenge others to see who can get the most leads in an hour. Another form of this is to ask others to hold you accountable for certain sales goals you’re hoping to hit.
Other than the four forms of motivation, what else can you do? One is to get completely sold on what you have. If you are completely sold on your product and you KNOW it’s going to help lots on people and make their lives significantly better, you’ll be more motivated to sell. As one of my sales managers used to say, ‘If you had a cure for cancer, you’d be out telling everyone.”
Also, be prepared. The better prepared you are for any and all sales situations, the more likely you are to want to make some sales calls. If you aren’t prepared, you’ll tend to avoid calls. In any case, your preparation level will definitely affect your motivation.
Another idea is to take better care of yourself and your health. If you’re putting the wrong food in your body or your sleep deprived, that will have a negative effect on your motivation, and it could be a substantial one. Get plenty of sleep, eat right, and exercise.
All of the above said, realize that you won’t always be motivated. This is where self-discipline comes in. If you can get yourself in the habit of making calls and doing the things you don’t want to do when you don’t feel like doing them, you’ll engrain those habits and it will be easier to do the things you need to do even when you don’t want to. Bottom line: whatever you can do to get yourself to do what you have to do.
Bonus: In a pinch, if nothing else works, you can take some caffeine to give yourself a boost. Just try not to do this with any regularity, or, if you do, try to limit your daily intake to 300 milligrams or less.
John Chapin is a motivational sales speaker, coach, and trainer. If you have questions, or to have him speak at your next event, go to www.completeselling.com John has over 37 years of sales and sales management experience as a number one sales rep and is the author of the 2010 sales book of the year: Sales Encyclopedia (Axiom Book Awards). You can reprint provided you keep contact information in place. E-mail: johnchapin@completeselling.com.
