Motivation – A Multi-Sided Story
Motivation – A Multi-Sided Story
By Joe DiDonato | Chief of Staff | Baker Communications, Inc.
The Motivation Competency is the 21st and final competency in this series on selling competencies. In this competency, we’re not only looking at the salesperson’s overall motivation level, but also the balance between intrinsic, extrinsic, and/or altruistic factors.
The motivation score defined by the data will tell you how motivated the salesperson is to achieve greater sales success. The icons used to describe a seller’s motivation on their dashboard are a dollar bill and a heart. The overall motivation is represented by a score, like 85%. A person’s ‘leaning’ is shown on a balance scale, with dollar bills on one side and hearts and handshakes on the other side.
The Hearts versus The Dollars
Intrinsically oriented individuals tend to be motivated by recognition, fulfillment, satisfaction, enjoyment, love of selling, mastery, or even when they have something to prove to others. They are often more consistent in a longer and more complex sales cycle. These are represented by the heart icon.
Extrinsically oriented individuals tend to be motivated by money, rewards, toys, vacations, and material things. They are more effective in a shorter and/or more heavily commissioned sales cycle. These are the dollar icon.
Altruistic salespeople are motivated to serve others at a cost to themselves. These salespeople put the customer ahead of their company’s needs and requirements.
The Deep Dive
When you see a person’s results, you’re also given a playbook of questions to help you better understand a person’s motivations. For instance, the report might show you a person’s preferences to help you gain a deeper understanding when you interview them. For example:
- Why does this person hate to lose more than loving to win?
- Why does this person prefer self-rewarding performance instead of spending money first to create self-imposed pressure to perform?
- Why does this person prefer self-pressure instead of being pressured?
- Why does this person prefer self-management versus being closely managed?
- Why does this person prefer self-competition versus competing with others?
- Why does this person prefer recognition over satisfaction?
As you study each of these tendencies in a person you’re about to hire or who’s already on your staff, as a manager, you’re going to be able to understand what will motivate that person, versus what will really irritate them. Although that would be great to know about all your relationships, when your job is to coach and motivate a team member, this is critical information.
We also show you some other factors that might indicate strengths or weaknesses:
- Enjoyment of Selling
- Personal Goals
- Meaningful Goals
- Plan for Reaching Personal Goals
- System to Track Progress
Having this data as background, you’ll be able to guide every seller on your team on their quest to reach their peak performance. It’s almost like having a set of instructions for growing and motivating each person on your team. It will take a lot of work and dedication from managers and sellers but remember our tagline: world-class performance never happens by accident.
If you’d like to learn more about how to use this predictive data to drive your hiring, onboarding, training, and coaching decisions, we invite you to listen to the advice and outcomes of a sales executive who changed her entire hiring and training process over to the data-driven approach. Watch the video here: https://www.bakercommunications.com/tailoredfit.html.