The first step is to recognize that motivation is an “inside-out” job. When the topic of motivation is discussed, we typically think about incentive compensation, sales contests, and recognition programs. All of these certainly encourage sales teams to focus on selling because they are rewards. However, you will gain true engagement and enthusiasm if you create an everyday environment that encourages each individual to identify and visualize their own internal motivation.

Do you remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid? The bottom two largest tiers are Physiological and Safety because these are the most basic needs of every individual, including salespeople who are starting at the bottom and working their way up to self-actualization. They must first have income for food, shelter, safety, etc. Only once they have attained all of these basic necessities can they turn their attention to the higher tiers of Love/Self-Belonging, Esteem, and Self-Actualization. This still holds true and is an important concept in building a high-performance sales team!

To put it another way, salespeople do not care about corporate shareholder value unless they are shareholders themselves. What they care about is food, shelter, clothing, recognition, paying for college education or weddings, saving for retirement, etc. These are personal desires and make up the vast majority of things that are important to people. So, the solution is to create an environment where this internal motivation can take place. (See The Dream Manager book by Matthew Kelly.)

Creating a Culture of Goal Setting and Recognition

This means that it is up to you to help your salespeople identify what is important to them. Make the effort to set up time off-site that is dedicated to planning and spend time developing each individual’s dreams and goals. This is time that you will spend on your business instead of in it. Take a day or two to help you and your team take a giant step forward to plan for the future and help them achieve their personal best performance.

Create a process where people can establish personal goals because this is where the motivation comes from. This is also where the passion and desire come from. Hence, this is where the business plan must come from. Very few companies spend time understanding the personal goals of their people, yet they are the basis for any salesperson achieving their goals.

You might position this as though you are the coach and the salespeople are players on a competitive team. Each of you has a part to play so that the whole team wins. Salespeople will usually understand and relate to this because they are competitive by nature. If someone does not get this, they may not be suited for selling. Selling requires desire, commitment, and a need to win.

Create an environment where people get a chance to unplug and sit down to outline their goals and dreams, and establish timeframes, attaching financial values to these items. Once you have attached financial values, you know what level of prospecting and selling activity is necessary for each salesperson. You will also have a much better idea of what realistic standards look like.

Reward yourself and your salespeople when they achieve success. So, as your people go through and identify their goals, and as you sit down as an individual salesperson to identify your goals, be sure to identify how you will reward yourself when you achieve them.

In some ways, salespeople are like kids in that they want to be recognized for their successes. In almost every home in America, we have a kid’s Hall of Fame, otherwise known as the refrigerator door. Every time one of the kids does something great, they come home through the door and look for attention: “Look at this. Look at my art. Look at the A on my science test.” And what do we do? We put their success on the refrigerator door, where everyone can be reminded of this accomplishment.

Somewhere, you will want to create a theoretical refrigerator door for your salespeople to recognize their successes. A visual reminder, even a poster board with a graph and names that is posted where all can see, is a great way to keep everyone motivated and to reward those who deserve recognition.

A good sales manager will also have a system for helping a salesperson get back on track and correct problems that have led to failure. For instance, you must have a conversation with Jane, who did not reach her prospecting goal for the month. You will ask her, “How important is it for you to succeed?” “What do you need to do to fix this problem?” “What kind of process or program could you put in place to get on track to succeed?”

Assuming that Jane has desire and indicates she is willing to do the work, you will say, “OK. This is what we are going to do. Every Thursday at 10 a.m. for the next four weeks, I am going to come to your office and listen to you make prospecting phone calls.” Then, you must follow through each week. This is the kind of discipline and structure that will get Jane back on the road to success. This is also the kind of hands-on coaching necessary for building a high-performance sales team.

Read more in our free eBook - The Extraordinary Sales Manager!

The Rules of the Game for Your Sales Team

1. Take batting practice every day – Practice that first call, how to overcome objections, how to uncover the decision-making process. In other words, pre-call plan.

2. Take what the pitcher gives you – Focus on the problem your prospect needs to solve and ask lots of questions. Leave your product briefcase and brochures in the car.

3. Swing at YOUR pitch – Just like a batter faces lots of pitches and only a few are ones they can really connect with, you will face many prospects, but only work with those you can truly help.

4. Take it base by base – When the 1st base coach is waving for you to keep going, go to second base. When you find out that your prospect has a “must-fix” problem, that doesn’t mean you should try to steal home. Go to second and make sure they have the money to fix the problem. Go to third to make sure they are committed to investing the time, money, or resources to fix the problem. Before you head for home, ensure you can score when you get there – and that means the prospect is committed to making a decision.

5. Shake it off – In the first inning, you might strike out, hit into a double play, walk to first, get hit by a pitch, or get stranded on first. You have to shake all of that off because you have 8 more innings to play. Our sales evaluation calls this handling rejection. Anything can happen as long as you keep going and getting at-bats.

In the end, selling is not for the faint of heart, nor is coaching. You and your team will withstand lots of pressure, demands, prospects who are not completely honest with you, rejection, and competition. Follow a sales process, love the process, and the process will love you back.

The definition of “psychology” is the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behavior in a given context. When we apply that to selling, as in the psychology of selling, we must understand the specific scientific characteristics and behaviors that apply to success in selling. Certainly, we can all think of people we have encountered in our own purchasing experiences that stand out. What is it that they do that makes them excellent and unique?

We utilize a sales evaluation by Objective Management Group that provides companies and individual salespeople with a peak into the science and the characteristics of great salespeople, (OMG assesses over 75,000 salespeople, sales managers, and sales leaders annually from more than 200 industries in 52 countries and is the pioneer and leader in the sales evaluation industry.)

Based on this science and psychology of selling, the graphic below defines 3 areas that salespeople must excel at in order to be top performers. They must have the Will to Sell, the Sales DNA and the competencies or tactical skills noted utilized daily in their sales process. Of course, no salesperson has them all mastered. We utilize this evaluation to help companies hire better salespeople and develop those they have.

One trait that is not on this list but is a bi-product of mastering many of the above is confidence. Great salespeople, due to their strengths, have the confidence in three areas that they can and will help those who choose to work with them.

The Psychology of Selling: 3 Areas of Confidence

First, they are confident in their firm’s value proposition (how their firm helps businesses or people solve problems). They believe their company can do everything they say they can do. They have “proof of concept” and share that with confidence. These confident salespeople rarely, if ever, think they need to have the lowest price. They position value, and they defend that value.

Secondly, they are confident in their approach. They know that they must interrogate reality, as Susan Scott says in her book “Fierce Conversations.” They must figure out whether the prospect is truly a prospect with a problem they have to solve, the money with which to solve it, and the conviction and clarity to make a decision when presented with a solution. Confident salespeople ask lots of tough questions.

Thirdly, confident salespeople do not have to be liked for the prospect to do business with them. They do subscribe to the philosophy that people generally enjoy business relationships with people they like. But they confidently believe that the buying decision is made because the prospect has trust and confidence that the salesperson can do what the salesperson says they can do – and that is to solve the prospect’s problem. Being liked has very little to do with any of that.

In the final chapter of his book The Psychology of Selling, Tracy shares the 10 keys to success in selling, which are of course worthy of including:

1. Do what you love to do
2. Decide exactly what you want
3. Back your goal with persistence and determination
4. Commit to lifelong learning
5. Use your time well
6. Follow the leader
7. Character is everything
8. Unlock your inborn creativity
9. Practice the golden rule
10. Pay the price of success

Understand more about the psychology of selling with our free eBook! Click below to download. 

In your role as Sales Leader in your company, you probably have asked this question of your sales managers or asked it of yourself in some variation: Why are Some of the People that You Hire, Train, Coach, Pay and Invest in Performing at a Level That is Lower Than Expected?

Certainly, you did not hire them with that intention.  When a potential new hire is brought to you by someone in your organization, they are typically described as:

• Highly successful
• Carry themselves very well
• Interviewed great
• Can be a top producer
• Has a great resume
• Has an awesome network
• Will fit our culture really well
• Will cost us more than we budgeted, but worth it

Never once did someone say to you that the person should be hired because: 12 months from now, they will be performing solidly in the middle of the pack. That wasn’t the intention, but it happens, alot.

The first step is to assess the current state of your sales team. If your numbers are like most, we get the chance to look at, then your sales team adheres to the 80/20 rule so you must get your arms around your numbers and figure this out for your company.  Once you have that data, ask yourself these questions:

• If this is true, then why do I have the other 80% of my sales team?
• Why is 80% of my team only generating 20% of my revenue?
• What are they doing or not doing that is getting that result? 
• What is my sales management environment/sales manager doing or not doing that is contributing to this outcome? 
• How long has it been this way and why?
• If this is true, then what should we be doing to correct the problem? 
• Is it a goal problem? 
• Is it a hiring problem? 
• Is it an on-boarding, training, development problem? 
• Do we have a process in place to help people succeed at the level we thought they would when we hired them?
• Is this a have-to-fix problem?

Once you get your arms around the data, you will gain some business intelligence and insight as to where the problems are and why they exist. Failing to do this data analysis is akin to trying to diagnose a medical problem without going through diagnostics on the systems responsible for good health!  As you attack the answer to these questions for your organization, we challenge you to take action. You don’t have to accept the status quo. The Pareto Principle does not have to thrive at your organization.

Create a Motivating Environment

The first step to motivating your sales team is to recognize that motivation is an “inside-out’ job. When the topic of motivation is discussed, we typically think about incentive compensation, sales contests, and recognition programs. All of these certainly encourage sales teams to focus on generating new business because these are rewards. However, you will gain true engagement and enthusiasm if you create an everyday environment that encourages each individual to identify and visualize their own internal motivation.

Salespeople do not care about corporate shareholder value unless they are shareholders themselves. What they care about is food, shelter, clothing, recognition, paying for college education or a wedding, buying a vacation home, etc. These are personal desires and make up the vast majority of things that are important to people. Therefore, the solution is to create an environment where this internal motivation can take place. See The Dream Manager book by Michael Kelly.

A salesperson’s motivation is one of five key factors that make up their Will to Sell. The Will to Sell Competencies measure a salesperson's overall drive to achieve success in sales. Without strong Will to Sell, it is difficult for an individual to change their habits or learn new skills. When hiring or developing salespeople, a manager must uncover how motivated they are to succeed in selling. We recommend a sales assessment by Objective Management Group, the pioneer and leader in the industry.

How to Set Motivational Goals for your Salespeople

The next step to motivating your sales team is to help your salespeople identify what is important to them, their goals. Make the effort to set up time off-site that is dedicated to planning and spend time developing each individual’s dreams and goals. This is time that you and they will spend ON your business instead of in it.

Create a process where people can establish personal goals because this is where true motivation, passion, and desire are born. Hence, it is from this process that each salesperson’s business plan must evolve.

You might position this process as though you are the coach and the salespeople are players on a competitive baseball team. Each of you has a part to play so that the whole team wins. When someone objects to the dream building exercises by saying something like “You are just going to provide a goal for me anyway so why do I have to do this?,” tell him that, as with a baseball team, each player must excel at his job so that the team can win and go to playoffs. Salespeople will understand this. If someone does not get this, he or she may not be suited for selling. Selling requires desire, commitment, and a need to win. Selling is a competition.

Create an environment where people get a chance to unplug, sit down and outline their goals and dreams; a time when both of you can establish timeframes and attach financial values to these items. Once you have attached financial values, you will know what level of prospecting and selling activity is necessary for each salesperson.

Create a Process to Track your Team’s Sales Success

It is not enough just to establish goals. A strong manager will create accountability measures to track performance along the way. We recommend holding weekly Huddles that are focused on the burning platform metrics that will drive success. Each company must establish what those metrics are. All must be present for the Huddle and report on the 4-6 metrics. This provides transparency of effort and success and provides you, the coach, with the essential real-time information you need to determine who needs coaching and in what areas.

Don’t forget to reward your people when they have a success. At our company, we have a big bell in the hallway that we ring every time we bring in a new relationship. It is LOUD and that is just the way we want it! As your people go through this process and identify their goals; as you sit down and establish your own personal and team goals, be sure to specify how you will reward and recognize your people as each of them achieve these goals.

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