Sales Byte®
Frustration with Motivation
Have you ever thought someone who works with you or for you wasn’t “motivated”? This might include: not fully completing paperwork, not selling maintenance agreements, not asking for the sale, not following up on leads, not giving installers complete information and so on.
Traditional management responses to someone who apparently isn’t motivated may include chastising, threatening, offering incentives, posting embarrassing results or sending him to training (my favorite). The result? Not much to nothing. The frustrated manager then shouts louder, threatens in writing, offers even greater incentives or sends him to yet another training seminar (I like that one too.). The results? The same. Nada.
Not motivated? I say that he IS motivated! He is motivated to not complete his paperwork, not sell service agreements, not ask for the sale and not follow up on leads. He IS motivated to do what he WANTS to do because of reasons that are important to him. He might not be able to spell correctly, he might not think service agreements are worth the money, he might feel asking for the sale and following up is pushy. He is doing what he chooses to do for reasons that are important to him.
As a manager, whatever you do to address this sort of performance problem won’t work unless and until he changes his attitude, opinion and belief about what you’re asking him to do.
In order for someone to change his attitude, opinion or belief he must first be open to changing his thinking. If he is willing to listen he will then require new information to consider. If that information makes sense, he’ll change. Once the change occurs, THEN recognition and financial rewards will reinforce his new behavior…and his “motivation” will be in alignment with what you want and need to get done.
Follow these steps and you’ll find that most people will be willing to reevaluate their thinking when given a reasonable chance. For those who are given this chance and choose not to change, well…they might be better off working for someone else.
Good Selling!
Tom
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