The Core of Motivation.
The technology of selling is, of course, all about communication. The cell phones, blackberries, email, websites and various tools used in the day-to-day work life are communications tools. Similarly, the main point of CRM is communication between sales reps and sales managers about the status of a customer account. And Web 2.0, which we discussed last week, is all about trying to create additional vehicles for communication.
Sales skills, too, are all about communication. Every sales training course deals with what you're suppose to say to a customer or how you're supposed to say it. Even the bastard stepchild of Sales (i.e. Marketing) is primarily concerned with communication, in the form of branding, advertising, brochures, and so forth. Considering that so much time and energy gets put into communications, it's fascinating and ironic we tend to ignore the most important communication channel when it comes to sales success: the communication that goes on inside your own head.
The motivational speaker Omar Periu once pointed out to me that "motivation is choosing to do what you rather not do." What he's describing is actually a process of communication. Some part of you would rather not do something, perhaps because you don't like doing it, or you're afraid of the outcome, or you'd rather do something else instead. Another part of you knows that you need to do the thing you're avoiding in order to be successful. A process of internal communication takes place, and one of the two segments of your mental processes wins the battle -- and you're either motivated to do what you need to do, or you're not.
Internal communication is therefore the core of motivation, which is the keystone of sales success. Motivated reps keep working on an opportunity until it results in a sale; unmotivated reps can almost always find an excuse to keep from doing what it takes to win. Therefore, we ought to b be spending at least as much time and energy on understanding our internal communication processes as we spend on sales gadgetry and sales skills. But generally we don't. So let's try to remedy that a bit here.
The "infrastructure" of your internal communication process is your belief system. Beliefs determine the type and quality of the internal communications that take place within your head.
If you believe that problems and challenges are speedbumps rather than roadblocks, you're more likely to tell yourself that taking the next step and "going the extra mile" will pay off, and have certainty that you'll eventually succeed. Similarly, if you believe that you're the captain of your destiny rather than a pawn of fate, the part of you that wants to be successful will win the "communication war" with the part of you that wants to watch YouTube all day. You'll have the motivation to continue moving forward, even when going gets rough.
Other beliefs create an infrastructure that has the opposite effect. For example, if you believe that your self worth should be based upon the opinions of other people (boss, customers, relatives, etc.), your brain will tend to pass along internal messages based upon whatever comments you've recently heard about yourself. And if those comments are negative, you'll be demotivated and discouraged. Similarly, if you believe that failure is so unpleasant that it must be avoided at all costs, you're internal communications will reinforce any message or idea that allows you to avoid any situations where failure is a risk.
The absolute worst belief -- when it comes to internal communication that leads to motivation -- is the surprisingly common idea that your status in life and potential as a human being is determined at birth or by the circumstances of your lives. Believing this allows you constantly deflect the blame for failure onto things over which you have no control, thereby lessening the pain of failure. I know a sales pro -- a 20 year veteran of the business -- who constantly shoots himself in the foot because he's convinced that he's fated to work for lousy bosses.
In other words, a belief acts as both 1) A communication channel that speeds thoughts along that fit with the belief and 2) a communications filter that blocks those thoughts that don't fit with the belief. The combination of those effects determine which part of your mental process will "win" the battle over how to spend your time. If you've got one set of beliefs, the part of your mind that wants to be successful at sales will win, and you'll be motivated. If you've got another set of beliefs, you'll constantly be fighting an uphill struggle to do what it takes to be successful.
More on this tomorrow. By the way, yesterday's experiment worked quite well -- as I believed that it would! And the comments to yesterday's post really got me thinking about new ways to get myself motivated.