Dear Tony,
I really struggle to be self motivated; are you aware of any practical ways that I can motivate myself on a daily basis?
I don’t if you are a football fan, however when the Manager gives his motivational pep talk, where do you think he delivers it? In the trophy room; why? Because he wants the team to be surrounded by success. So my first suggestion is to keep track of every sale you make in a book or an excel spreadsheet and refer back to regularly to keep reminding yourself of how good you are.
Set goals; every salesperson should be goal orientated, however, they don’t have to be financial. Your goal could be to become a sales manager, to best, your previous months’ sales figures, etc. The point is to set a goal and make sure they are SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. A goal without these is just a dream. I find setting mini goals every day or every week is very motivational I.e. this week I’m going to ask three clients for a recommendation. By setting the goal, you are far more motivated to make it happen.
Get yourself into a positive mindset. The way you achieve this must be personal to you; for example, I wake up 20 minutes earlier than I need to spend that invaluable time with my kids. This always gets me into a good and positive mindset. Other suggestions are to do some brief exercises, go for a walk, watch an episode of your favorite comedy show. Make sure you avoid negative people; they’ll drain all your positive energy.
Always look for feedback. The beauty of sales is there is no such thing as failure, it’s all feedback. Always go back to your client or prospect and ask what you could have done differently to be successful? I normally write an email and make it clear they will not offend me and I want their honest and valued feedback as I’m always looking to develop and improve. I feel by asking this in an email allows people to be honest and not get embarrassed about providing constructive feedback. Remember every lesson you take away from a sales situation will arm you better for your next encounter.
Set yourself personal challenges. Similar to goal setting, make sure you are always striving to better yourself and making small improvements. Whenever I go to the gym, I always try and run 1 Meter more in 10 minutes. This forces me to push myself every time.
My final suggestion is to remember to congratulate and reward yourself. Many sales people I train and achieve great things and they are immediately thinking of their next challenge. It’s important to remember to take some time out and reward your success; these clips be buying yourself a well-deserved gift, eating out somewhere nice, having a little break, etc.
