Sales Motivation is the Key to Selling Success
Sales Motivation
is the key to selling success. A salesperson that has trouble getting and staying motivated will not last very long. Selling is an occupation that is self-weeding. Those who don’t perform consistently will be weeded out by their lack of results. Many potential sales people who find they can’t handle the pressure of selling leave the profession on their own.The profession of selling is often under-appreciated by others in the company who see the job as just one big social occasion—sweet-talking customers, attending outside lunches and dinners and freedom to travel outside the office. People who don’t appreciate the sales force never really stop to consider what might happen if the sales force wasn’t there. Revenue would decline or disappear and all the company jobs would dry up, putting everyone out of work. I agree with the adage: “Nothing happens until somebody sells something”. This quote is attributed to Red Motley, a highly-regarded sales motivation trainer from the 1940’s and 1950’s. It must be a good quote because more recently Jim Barksdale, ex-CEO of Netscape, adapted this by saying “Of course, nothing happens until somebody sells something”. The message here is that you can have the most elegant, effective, functional, beautiful, perfectly-priced product in the world and if no one knows about it or no one has purchased it, it will remain forever in the warehouse gathering dust. This section of the website is devoted to sales motivation, a subject near and dear to me as I have spent the past 30 years either selling or managing those who sell for a living. Selling can be the most difficult, disheartening, depressing job in the world. Or it can be the most exciting, rewarding, stimulating job in the world. All this can and will happen in the space of a few hours. To be truly motivated, sales people must be able to handle the ups and downs of the selling cycle and be able to mentally smooth out the peaks and valleys so that they don’t get discouraged and give up. How can they keep that level of sales motivation day in and day out? How can they set sales goals and achieve those goals year after year? After all, sales people are on the front lines. There is no “filter” between the sales person and the customer. In addition to and in spite of their primary job of meeting sales quotas, sales people at various times must act as customer service, credit and collections, advertising, marketing, shipping and quality control to their customers. If anyone in the company does something the customer doesn’t like, the sales person must figure out how to turn that situation around and get the customer to purchase once again. I am reminded of an old episode of the television show WKRP in Cincinnati. Herb Tarlek was the sales rep for the radio station and no one there respected him or what he did. Herb was the typical stereotype of a sales person. He wore loud suits and shoes and he drank a lot. He finally ended up in alcohol rehabilitation. While Herb was in rehab the owner of the station (The Big Guy) thought, no big deal, I can handle the sales while Herb is out—after all how hard can it be? The Big Guy made a sales call to their biggest customer, a new car dealer in Cincinnati. The owner of the dealership informed The Big Guy that he was cutting back, there would be no radio ads this month and where was Herb anyway? For a small radio station, this was devastating! The Big Guy panicked and began the process of starting lay-offs because the station’s budget was now completely blown. The last scene shows Herb coming back into the station and The Big Guy delivered the bad news to Herb—no car dealer ads, no radio station. Herb looked at The Big Guy out of the corner of his eye and said, “That’s OK, he says that every month. I just drove by there and his car lot is over-flowing with cars. He HAS to advertise to move that inventory or he’ll go broke.” Herb then put his feet up on the desk, called the customer and closed the deal. This portion of the website is devoted to sales motivation. I will give you sales motivation techniques like
positive self talk
that will keep you motivated and happily meeting your sales goals—and you won’t have to start drinking like Herb! I have used these sales motivation techniques many times over the years to meet some very big and difficult quotas. I hope you find the information here helpful and that you’ll try some of these sales motivation techniques. If they work for you, I’d love to hear from you, so please be sure to
contact me here.
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I Wanted (Needed) to Work from Home
Hi. My name is Carolyn.
Have you ever wanted to own your own business? Do you dream of being your own boss? I’ll bet a lot of you are like me. I worked in corporate America for over 30 years and dreamed of having my own business every day.
I was tired of corporate pressure and not being able to control my own destiny.
Then one day the pressure took its toll and I was no longer able to physically perform my job. Suddenly my desire to work from home became a necessity.
Do you have a hobby that you would like to turn into a business? I work from home now building my website about two subjects that I am passionate about--motivation and self improvement!
You can do it too! You can take charge and write your own ticket to the future.
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