Just How Important Is Self-Motivation In Selling?

September 30th, 2007

by Jonathan Farrington

Motivation is a dynamic state that results in the desire, directional intensity and persistence of behaviour to achieve a long or short- term goal.

Without motivation our sales performance, and consequently our results can be severely impaired. When we are, feeling motivated, we light up our performance like a Christmas tree, and equally when we feel de-motivated, everything seems to be much harder work.

As sales people, if we continually look to find motivation from outside of ourselves, then we are placing ourselves in a risky situation because it may not always be possible to have a drip feed of motivation feeding us when we need it most. That is why, the more we can understand about what motivates us personally, the more it helps us to tap into our internal motivational power.

We are all unique individuals and are motivated by what is important to us personally. The factors that are important to us can be described as our values and are the fuel that drives our behaviour.

Our values are unique to us and we each have a different set of values based on different aspects of our lives. For example:

Career

Relationships

Finances

Health and Fitness Family and Home Social Life

Personal Development

Spirituality

If we can discover our values in the context of our career in sales, we are consciously able to identify what is important to us and can therefore begin to notice ways to leverage our own motivation.

If we are doing a job that satisfies our most important values then we will feel highly motivated and energised. Sometimes when we feel de-motivated, it is because we are not consciously aware that certain aspects of our job role are aligned to our career values.

The process to leverage our own motivation is:

1. Discover what is important to us in our career (these are our career values)

2. Prioritise our career values in their order of importance to us.

3. Develop reasons why our current job role can satisfy each of our career values.

About the Author

Jonathan Farrington is the Chairman of The Sales Practitioners Group and CEO of Top Sales Associates.

To find out more about the author, or to enjoy his highly informative and popular daily blog, visit:jonathanfarrington.com

4 Responses to “Just How Important Is Self-Motivation In Selling?”

  1. on 01 Oct 2007 at 1 Robert Bradford

    Funny enough what motivated me was the title of your blog. To my further delight I find I will be back often for more inspiration and ideas. Thank you!

  2. on 02 Oct 2007 at 2 David

    A bit oversimplistic, but I see your point. While I’ve been in the workforce for a long time, now in my retirement years I still want to keep my hand in and am trying new ideas online. However, while a large percentage of the time my motivation is high, I’m still struggling to understand and implement the basics.

    “The factors that are important to us can be described as our values and are the fuel that drives our behaviour.”

    Yet, I must admit that on some days, my “fuel” runs particularly low lol!

  3. on 02 Oct 2007 at 3 Mario Adi Saputra

    Hi,

    you have a great blog here! I’m just read your article about “Just How Important Is Self-Motivation In Selling?”
    I’m definitely going to bookmark you!

    I have a website which pretty much covers related with your blog here :

    http://www.positive-attitudes.com

    Come and check it out if you get time :>

  4. on 08 Nov 2007 at 4 Karolina Quintero

    I found very interesting this article actually it helps me a lot because I was one of the salesperson that was thinking that motivation is external and I was putting myself in a risky situation as the Author said. Now I decided to leave a little bit the sales-world and continue with my Masters. It is interesting to understand the motivations of the “sales reps” but we have to remember we are dealing with people of different backgrounds and needs. Any way I guess I will go back to the Corporate sales after I finish my Masters with a better understanding of how valuable is a to have a self motivation.

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