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Sales leaders! Want to build strong teams without burning out in the process?
Introducing Surviving Sales Leadership, where each episode is a practical conversation with experienced sales leaders and elite sales coaches about what actually works.
Coaching reps, managing pipeline, forecasting, enablement, and navigating growth without everything feeling harder than it should.
No “just hold people accountable” nonsense.
Real-world tactics and strategies that work in sales right now.
If you’re a sales manager, head of sales, sales director, or revenue leader who wants better results, better conversations with your team, and a little more confidence in the chaos, this show’s for you.
Subscribe and start surviving sales leadership today!
All right, today we're getting into a
topic every sales leader meets sooner or
later. We've all been there.
How do you manage the unmotivated sales
rep without defaulting to pep talks,
pressure, or the dreaded
PIP as your first move?
I'm joined by two MySalesCoach
coaches, Steve Myers and Tim Ogle,
and we go straight at
the uncomfortable truth,
trying to motivate people usually fails.
So, what actually works instead, we
unpack the difference between motivation
and performance.
Why carrot and stick isn't the
lever that leaders think it is.
How to find what's
genuinely driving someone,
and how to get behaviour change, even
when belief and confidence aren't quite
there yet.
I'm your host, Tom Boston, and welcome
back to the Surviving Sales Leadership
sessions from MySalesCoach. Let's go.
PS, did you know we've just created the
Modern Revenue Leader's Sales Coaching
Manual?
It's 48 pages, full of insights on how
you can successfully coach your sales
team, whether you've got high
performers, low performers,
new sellers, or old sellers. We've
got the frameworks to coach them all.
Grab your free copy of the
manual today. My name's Tom.
I'm on the brand team
here at MySalesCoach,
and if you don't know who we are, we
evaluate your team and match them with
elite sales experts to drive measurable
growth through one to one coaching,
and I'm just so lucky to be joined
by two of those elite sales coaches.
Let me throw over to Steve Myers.
My name is Steve Myers, I'm one
of the sales leadership coaches at
MySalesCoach.
I've been coaching for the last 19
years, not all of that with MySalesCoach,
I hasten to add, following a 20
year career in global IT sales,
and before that I used to sell
Encyclopaedia Britannica door to door,
and standing on train stations for Courts.
So, I've gone from selling
encyclopaedias through to jet engines,
and now, yeah, spent the
last 19 years consulting,
training, and coaching.
Love it. Yeah. And how easy was it
to sell encyclopaedias door to door?
The secret to selling
encyclopaedias door to door,
Tom, is you have to wave the
free draw card at eye level.
That was the training. Wave. Would
you like to enter a free draw, sir?
And Tim, how about how about you?
Do you want to tell our lovely
audience a little bit about yourself?
Hi, yeah, my name's Tim Ogle.
I'm also one of the coaches at
MySalesCoach, amongst other things.
Background, very briefly,
been in sales most of my life,
like 30 years of career, split fairly
equally between 15 years of actually
selling directly and 15
years of probably leading,
transforming, and changing businesses,
and I've done what I do now for the
last three.
So not as long as Steve, but certainly
bringing a lot of hard-earned real-life
experience of what it was like trying
to turn various businesses around,
and having sold a lot as well.
I've also just learned that
if I want to sell shelving,
I should have followed
Steve down the street,
because if you're about to win 28
books, you need somewhere to put them.
We've got some years under
our belts between us here,
chaps, so we've got lots
of learnings to give.
I'm not sure why I've been asked to host
this when it's all around unmotivated
sales people. I hope that's
not a hint from my team.
Maybe I'm going to bring some real world
experience of being someone in seat,
but you know, if anyone's on this call
and you've had that rep who's maybe
they look a bit unmotivated, and you
might be thinking about maybe I'm gonna
get rid of this person, right? I
can't really get them up to speed.
This session is really
going to help with that.
So let's talk a little bit about
what we're going to go through today.
So, today's session is going to be all
around why trying to motivate people
fails and what actually works instead.
We're going to talk about diagnosing
motivation versus performance.
The warning signs for managers are the
things that you might miss when you
assume a rep is just disengaged,
but how do you spot that,
and what do the differences look like?
We're going to talk about
comfort zone behaviour limits,
and how that can kind of ruin results.
And then we're also going to talk about
actions to take before escalating and
going to the dreaded PIP.
So, rather than shove
someone out the door,
what are the things that we
can do to make sure that we,
we don't necessarily have
to go down that route?
I want to kick off with the difference
between motivation and performance,
those two words. I'll
start with you, Steve.
Well, performance is what
really matters, right?
I mean, performance is why
we're all here, you know,
moving the needle on the performance
gauge. So that's what happens.
Motivation is why it happens.
So why do people put themselves through
the rigour of what they need to do in
order to perform, especially when that
requires them to step outside from
their comfort zone, whatever
that comfort zone is.
So, I think motivation
speaks to performance,
but perhaps it speaks more
to performance change,
right?
Moving that needle, because I think
people can be high performers and not
necessarily be highly
motivated, if that makes sense.
They just, they can be in a comfort
zone, they're just comfortable with high
levels of performance.
Equally, you can have somebody
who's at a low level of performance,
and then they're in a comfort zone.
The majority are kind of
somewhere in the middle.
So, I think motivation really comes in
when we're looking to change the level
of performance.
Tim, would you rather have
someone who's highly motivated,
or a high performer?
Oh, that's a horrible question.
I know, that's why I asked it.
I want both.
If a salesperson was 100 metre runner
and you had access to Usain Bolt,
you know, I'd probably
accept 95% of a Usain Bolt,
because he's going to be just better
than almost everybody else who could do
what he does. That's why
it's a tough question.
Clearly, as the leader of
that team, if I had a choice,
I'd be looking to then untap,
why is that person not motivated,
and can we unlock that bit, because
that's when you get the extra bit.
So, no, if the, if they're basically
good at doing their job and not very
motivated, that's probably an
interesting place to start.
It's a really fascinating discussion
that I've had with quite a lot of sales
leaders.
You know, do we really care about
motivating somebody if they're doing 100% of
their number, there's
an argument that says,
well, could they do 200% Should
we be driving them to do that?
So I always draw a distinction
between quota and target.
Quota is the minimum standard of
performance that's necessary to justify their
seat at the table,
their place on the team,
but target is a number that
the individual is aiming for,
for their reasons.
So, I think it's an interesting question,
whether you've got somebody who's
doing 100% Should you even be
trying? It's a topic for debate.
I've been sure to get Tim's view on that.
This is where we're going to
go into the webinar in detail,
because it's going to get into fundamentally
what is driving that person to be
there, and why they exist, and
why they're operating in this job.
Purely, if there's a way of unlocking
200%, take it. Like, let's explore it.
There's some more situational things
around that that need to encourage and
make sure that is raised,
rewarded, recognised,
all those things. Otherwise, it's a
waste of the person's time doing it.
One of the things I picked
up on then was around,
like, personal goals, which takes me
quite nicely on to the next slide,
because that's number one on the list
of the most common things that we see
when a rep might appear to be unmotivated.
The very first one is that misalignment
between their personal goals and the
role that they're doing.
I guess my question to both of
you, we'll start with you, Steve.
How do we make sure we have alignment
between a rep's personal goals and the
role they're doing?
So this is where I get a little bit
prescriptive when I'm working with my
clients.
One of the two foundational pieces
that I think are prerequisite to really
high levels of success is that leaders
need to understand in detail the
deep-seated personal life goals, the
emotionally compelling life goals of each
member of the team, because I believe
their primary duty as a leader is to
know what their people want and
to show them a path to get there.
You have to take people through a
structured exercise where they are having
not only smart goals but smarter goals,
where the ER stands for emotionally
real.
If you ask people, what are your
goals, you hear what I call apprentice
selling, right?
They're watching too many
episodes of The Apprentice,
and they say, I want loads of
money, I want to be successful,
I want a flash car, I want a
big house, But is that right?
One of the things I'll share is a
template for how do you have that
conversation, how do you take people
through that structured goal setting
conversation. But for me,
that's absolutely foundational.
If you can get people working for
their reasons as opposed to yours,
then that's a game changer.
Yeah, I love what you said
there, their reasons as opposed,
as opposed to yours. So, maybe you
talked about, like, a flash car there.
You talked about kind of
what someone might want,
and what's the first step then in
making sure we've got that alignment?
Over to you, Tim. What's that first step?
How do we make sure that we'd have a
step towards the alignment of goals?
Reflecting on what Steve said,
I agree broadly with him.
However, I'm sure some of the people on
the call listening in now are dealing
with relatively entry-level,
like SDR type roles,
or you know, junior sales
people, and I often find,
when you're dealing with people in almost
their first sales job in their like
fledgling career life, and
you go, What's your goal?
and they go, I have no idea.
Education, a bit of extra
education, jump into a job,
probably done a bit of
part-time work. I don't know.
I just want to make sure I don't
get sacked and earn a few coins.
There's a bit of reality
that clicks in there.
So I think you can sometimes overwhelm
people. They think, am I failing?
I don't have this big lifelong goal
that I'm trying to achieve yet.
And the yet is an interesting one,
because they may not have that burning
desire right now, but once
you've asked the question,
it seeds them thinking
about it, and therefore,
if you don't get the answer
in question one on week one,
it's something to keep checking in
on for the next six months or so,
because they'll probably start
to think about it more and more,
and ultimately, if it's like a trait
of really successful salespeople,
they do strive to be brilliant,
they do strive to be amazing,
and if somebody doesn't
have that instinct,
like I want to be amazing, I want to
be the best I can be at this thing I've
chosen to do, and they probably
shouldn't be in this role long term.
It might be a stepping stone to the
next thing in the short to medium,
but long term it's not for them. You
don't enter sales to have an easy life.
Yeah, one of the things you said there
is, I want to be amazing at this,
and you know, I've sat in seat where
maybe I don't think I want to be amazing
at this. I just want, like you said,
I want to hit my goals, you know?
If I hit target, if I
exceed, then that's great,
but, but actually, you know, inspiring
that growth in somebody like,
where does that, where
does that come from?
What if you're dealing with
someone who may be like me,
sales isn't necessarily for them, is it?
Then having a conversation around
moving on, how does that start?
Are they unconfident, and
why are they unconfident?
Are they feeling
incapable? Are they scared?
Are their competence levels
not where they need to be?
So, there'll be all sorts of things,
which could be driving this apparent lack
of motivation.
We can't tell at this point, because
simply just ask, what's your big goal?
It's a very, very valid question, and
I think Steve and I will be unanimously
agreed that we would cover that.
It's just that the reason for suddenly
not being motivated isn't always that.
It's often lots of other layers as to
why, and we've got to pick it apart and
understand what those layers are.
It could be confidence,
could be competence,
could be skill, could be fear, could
be lots of other things that get in the
way of how they're
feeling about this role.
And if we can start knocking those down,
you'll suddenly find the motivation
can go through the roof,
and they start to believe,
yes, I can do this, I
can be amazing at this,
and that can then lock into their goal.
I think we've got to draw
a distinction between it,
kind of goes back to slide one, but
if we draw a distinction between
motivation and performance, how do
we know that somebody's unmotivated?
How does that show up?
So, if that shows up in I'm not making
enough cold calls for an SDR point of
view, if they're not
doing enough activity,
is that a motivation issue
or is that a skill issue?
Is it that they don't know
how to make great cold calls,
or that they know damn well
how to make great cold calls,
but they just can't bring
themselves to, you know,
is it a motivation issue or is
it actually a process issue?
Have they not got the
right support in place,
so I think we've got to define
what we mean by motivation,
and how do we tell when
somebody's unmotivated,
because sometimes the behaviour that
we see isn't a motivation issue at all.
Does a PIP help people turn around,
or is it the start of the end?
I've seen more fail
than win, if I'm honest,
and let's be blunt, the
PIP in some companies,
and it varies from company to company,
PIP is often seen culturally as a,
oh my god, I'm being forced out, and
I think it starts with what's the
cultural perspective of that company,
and how much do they actually want to
develop and grow people, and hopefully
I'm hoping by the time anybody's got
anywhere near a PIP, there
has been usually many weeks,
if not months, of conversation
around performance with really,
really clear standards of expectation
from the leadership and understanding of
what's getting in the way and
how that's impacting performance,
whether that's in terms of
their skill, their competence,
their ability, or their motivation.
So all of that ground should
have been covered by now,
and the PIP is simply a final straw,
and it's sometimes the final straw and a
serious kick that for
somebody who goes, 'Oh my god,
and it's the cliff edge, it's
like this is now very serious,
and for a few occasions
I've seen that really work.
I will admit I've seen more fail than
win, but some of the wins where I've
seen it turn around, those people
have actually gone on to be really,
really amazing in their careers.
I won't quote any names, because if
they're listening they'll know who they
are, but there's a couple have gone
on to really really big things,
and at that point in time,
when that PIP was delivered,
they were probably sat there going,
this is the worst thing in my world,
and is hurting me a lot, but
the turnaround was unreal.
So, I think by default, the question
of the statement of do we see more fail
than win, that's to be expected, because
there's a reason why we're putting it
in place.
These are people who are
generally not performing,
or not demonstrating
a level of competence,
or willingness to change that competence,
and therefore this is the final
straw, which is why back to Grant's
point, do we see more fail than win?
Yes, we do, but the wins
are unreal when they happen.
So, let's talk about the fact that
you can't just motivate anyone,
and it has to always be
like self, self-generated.
Before we move on to the carrot
and the stick management analogy,
which I think we'll
have a good chat about.
Steve, do you want to talk to me about
the idea of self-generated motivation,
how do we get that cooking?
You've got to look at the
old levers we used to use,
the carrot and the stick,
and ask why they don't work.
The stick approach, I don't believe
that has a strong effect on motivation,
because if you let somebody
go, for most people,
they're re-employed within a
few months, that's the reality,
even if they're not, you know, we're
fortunate in the culture we live in,
where nobody goes to the poor house,
so we have support systems to help
people.
The old lever of the stick
is not effective anymore,
and the carrot, the idea of
throwing more money at it,
well, for most of us, money exists
only as a number on a phone screen,
and it's very hard to get emotionally
attached to a number on a phone screen.
What people do get attached to is
what they want to do with that money,
so that's their self-generated goals.
It's not I want the number on the screen,
it's I want the security of paying
my mortgage off, or it's I want
to pay for my kids' education,
or it's something deeply
personal that needs funding,
so it's not the money
itself that's the motivator,
it's not the carrot itself, it's what
we're going to do with that funding,
so that's what I mean when
we talk about self-generated.
Yeah, I like that.
That definitely speaks to me, because
I've worked with people who've had
pictures of cars on their desk,
and I never really got that.
There was a Lamborghini in the car park
at the trampoline park that I go to
with the kids. It wasn't for me. I
don't know how I'd get into it, right?
But some, some people, that's their thing.
My goals are definitely
kind of more emotional,
right around like family and
like protection and future.
How do we self generate motivation?
This comes back to what I was saying
earlier about taking people through that
structured goal setting.
When we talk about
structured goal setting,
we're not always just talking about
money, and we're not always talking about
the acquisition of things, right.
We're also talking about
intellectual goals,
family and emotional goals,
sporting and health goals,
even religious and spiritual goals.
So, it's not always about
the acquisition of money,
but it is getting to something which
is emotionally compelling for that
individual. You ask 100 young
men who wants a Lamborghini?
Probably 100 put their hands in the air.
But one of the tests that we apply to
understanding whether or not somebody
has a real goal is we
ask them the question,
are you prepared to do
whatever the hell it takes,
and I'm supposed to add legally,
morally, and ethically in there,
but are you prepared to do whatever
the hell it takes to achieve this goal?
Are you prepared to make
the necessary sacrifices?
Are you prepared to step out
and stay out of a comfort zone?
Are you prepared to do things
that make you uncomfortable?
And a lot of people put their
hands down at that point,
because you know the car is a nice thing,
but it's not emotionally compelling.
I do have a client who lives
a very modest lifestyle,
lives in a relatively modest house,
buys his clothes at the supermarket,
but has a lock up with 2 million
pounds worth of cars in it.
He's got three Lamborghinis,
all wrapped in purple,
for some very strange reason.
So, for him, you know, as a petrol
head, those cars are emotionally
compelling, but whether it's cars or
whether it's education or whether it's
being able to spend time with the family,
you've got to get to what's really
important. It's not always
just about the money.
Tim, have you got any Lamborghinis?
No.
What affects you and the people
you've managed in the past?
What have been some things that have
typically you've used to unlock that
motivation as opposed to interject it?
It's incredibly personal. There isn't
a standard one size fits all answer.
And I get really wound up in
sales where there's this view,
almost outdated now, and
it's becoming less used,
that everybody's coin operated,
and everybody's motivated by cash,
and I reckon I haven't
done the stats on this,
but I reckon there's a 5050 split on that.
I reckon 50% of people are and
50% aren't, and that's fine,
because I've seen amazing sales
people in both categories.
It's just incredibly personal.
You've got to get back
to the point of why,
why, why, what's the why, why here,
what's making you turn up today?
And what's the goal of why you're here?
And it comes back to the previous point.
When you're speaking to somebody
first out in their career,
going, what's your big
goal, and they don't know,
it can take some time for
them to think about it,
and it's often a good process to go
through to help encourage them to think
about that, because they can go
through that period of self-discovery,
and it could be the foundation that
really helps their life and career
direction.
I've seen that happen
so many times, you know,
with especially with younger folk, they
don't have goals when you ask them,
because they haven't thought about it,
but you take them through a process,
like you say, and get
them to go think about it,
and more often than not,
they'll come back with,
this was life changing, because
now I've got a direction,
even if it's not the same direction
that they follow in a few years,
right, the direction may change, but
right now they've got a direction.
I want to talk a little bit
around structural versus personal when it comes to
unlocking motivation, and I know before
the call we had a really good chat
about the differences between these two.
Okay, Tim, we'll start off with the
left hand side, around structural.
Okay, can I start?
I'm going to start above the slide,
with the unlocking motivation question,
the thing that's interesting
here, like lots of sales leaders,
up and coming sales leaders who we
coach, they'll come with a question of
like, how do I motivate my team,
how can I make them motivated,
and I go, you can't,
like, bluntly, you can't,
like, because it's that
self-generated thing,
and you go back to what's
the purpose of the leader,
what are they there for,
and why do they exist,
and I generally break
it down simplistically,
like most of my thinking,
into three things.
There's three reasons the leaders there.
Number one, set the
goal and the direction,
like where the hell are we going,
and why are we going there.
Number two is set the level of expectation
of what's required from the team
and the people going on that journey.
You can't micromanage
everybody, because if you do,
you'll just wind them all up.
But what you can do is set
the levels of what's required,
and then manage that
level of what's required,
and that's got to be quite personal.
It's got to be things that
mean something to you,
otherwise you'll come across as
an incredibly inauthentic leader.
And to bring that to life, it might be
simple things like caring and turning
up on time.
Punctuality might be
important to some people,
it might be delivering on time, but
equally it could be desire and drive to
succeed, or willingness to always
learn, or always push themselves to be
better than they were yesterday, They
may be intrinsic behaviours that the
leader wants to instil in the team.
And then the third bit is
holding people accountable,
like once you've set the direction where
you go and the standards of which you
want people to operate,
holding people accountable.
And why am I saying this here?
Because especially on that structural
side, that is all leadership.
Putting pressure on people is
holding people accountable.
On incentives instead of ownership,
I don't completely agree with it.
Put incentives in for the people
who are motivated by reward,
but the ownership can be
empowering and trusting,
and that could be a leadership
style you want to embody.
Targets instead of meaning, it depends.
I think that can work, but
I think also that deeper,
why are we going where
we're going is important,
And assumptions instead of evidence.
As a leader, if you're
trying to get to the truth,
you can't just make assumptions,
you've got to have evidence.
If you're giving feedback to people,
are you providing any insight,
positive or negative,
back it up with tangible,
observable evidence.
Should we look then at like the
difference between the two here?
Then, when it comes to
unlocking motivation, Steve,
so let me talk about the
kind of the personal column,
so we're starting from the assumption
that we've gone through that goal
setting, we know what people's
emotionally compelling goals are,
but we're not doing this
just entirely altruistically,
in a navel gazing sense.
One of the purposes of having a clearly
defined destination is that we can
create a detailed route
map of getting there,
so one of the purposes of creating
goals is that we can then help define a
plan for the achievement of those goals,
and then we can take that plan down
and we can turn it into
actionable actions,
if that's not a tautology, and we can
take it down into the actions and the
frequency with which those actions need
to happen in order to deliver those
goals, so you might start with
a big audacious multi year goal,
like I want the security
of owning my own property,
so I want to get my mortgage paid off,
and I want to do that in the next 10
years, you're going to
take that 10 year goal,
you're going to break it
down into 10 annual goals.
You're going to take the current
portion of that annual goal,
you're going to break it
down into 12 monthly goals.
Now, I don't have a 10 year
goal. Now I've got a 30 day goal.
I know what I need to do
in order to fund that goal.
Therefore, I know how much I need to sell.
I can work my ratios back
and turn those into actions,
and So what I can then do is
come up with an action plan.
I call it a cookbook.
Every recipe has a list of ingredients
and a quantity in order to get that
known output.
So, to Tim's point, what we then do is
hold people accountable for the things
that they need to do in order to get
the things that they want to get,
and so what we can do
is carry out, actually,
a very similar - it looks on surface
to be very similar to the ultimate in
toxic micromanagement, where we're sitting
over somebody's shoulder monitoring
what they do.
But rather than doing
it from an oppressive,
toxic, top-down management point of
view, we're doing it from a supportive,
bottom-up coaching standpoint,
And because of human nature,
we don't always act in
our own best interest,
so sometimes we do need
a kick up the backside,
even on the things we know we need to
do in order to get to the things that we
want to get to. So that's the process.
It starts with looking at big,
audacious, multi-year goals,
perhaps, but then it comes down
to what I need to do today,
in the next eight hours, to
contribute to that 10 year goal.
The biggest reason why salespeople lose
motivation is that they lose sight of
the connection between
what they need to do today,
this week, this month, and the achievement
of something that is way out there.
I like what you just described.
I've used that, and from
what I've seen it works.
I think the next bit
to help reinforce that,
if you're the leader in that,
is to then empower and trust,
and by that I mean, when
you get to the end of,
like, what's the goal, how
you gonna break it down,
what's that going to look like, what's
your activity going to look like?
It's then the micro things where
you step in and go, okay, cool.
So, will you write that down on
an email, and we can document it?
And when will you send that?
When will you send that to me?
As a leader, you're not doing it, you're
putting the ownership and emphasis on
the person, and those micro challenges
will show like how bought in they are
to that, and how motivated they
are, because if the person is a high
performer, they'll have that list of
what you've just agreed back on your
email within 15 minutes.
The other person doesn't
bother, and it'll be a week,
and you'll go, 'You
never sent me that list.
Completely, couldn't agree more.
But you also have to do
that on a continuous basis,
not just at the beginning, right?
So one of the things I'll have is
something called an accountability call.
Tell me about last week's cookbook.
What did you commit to do
from a behaviour standpoint?
What did you actually do?
And you can even get people to do that
with peers rather than leadership.
So, yeah, I mean, the motivated people,
the people that want to step outside
their comfort zones, they will drive it.
They have to drive it, because
if you drive it as a manager,
then, as you said, Tim, it becomes toxic.
I'm loving all this insight into
coaching, because this is something I get
really excited about. It takes me
quite nicely on to our next point.
You know, this is all great if you've
got a really self-aware sales rep who
knows exactly where their
motivation needs to be focused on.
They know where they lack.
But what we're finding is that a lot
of individuals don't know the areas
they're weak in, maybe they're not
sure exactly where they need to improve
that can help them with their motivation.
So it takes us quite nicely on to our
OMG assessments that we run for all of
our customers here at MySalesCoach.
I've got a quote from Mark
Ackers on these, which I love.
He likes them because he
prefers real data to opinion,
which I think is great,
and when it comes to OMG,
you know this is a
scientifically researched,
proven, and validated
assessment for sales teams,
and OMG are undisputedly the market
leader when it comes to sales assessments.
Apparently it's a very competitive
space, but we use these guys because
they're the best, and I'm sure both of
you have used these in your coaching
sessions as well.
Let's have a look, then, at where
kind of motivation comes in to the
assessment, because when
we do these assessments,
it gives us a lot of results, right?
One of them being like desire
and like the will to sell,
and that's where the
motivation kind of comes out,
right? That's where we learn
the most about a coachee.
Steve, do you want to kick us off on
what affects someone's will to sell?
Actually, let me hand that to Tim.
For context, I've been working with
OMG stuff for about five years,
so I've done a lot of this. I've seen
it. I like it as well. I'm a big fan.
Why do I like it?
I like it because it's like an insight
into somebody's soul and legitimises
some really, really tricky
conversations very quickly.
Like, how often can you have a real
deep conversation about somebody's level
of responsibility, and you can, when
you've got data in front of you like
this, what affects
somebody's will to sell?
It's usually them, and I
don't mean that flippantly.
You normally start, and you can see, I
don't think you can see on the graphic,
it says desire and commitment,
the top two things.
The analogy I use a lot to bring this
to life when working with somebody
through this is a marathon.
Every summer there's a big city
marathon, like the London Marathon,
and loads of people watch
it on TV, and they go,
You know what, that looks really
good. I'm going to do that.
I want to do that. You know,
that's something I want to do.
I've got no statistics on this, but I
bet the number of people who say that,
compared to the number who actually pull
it off and run the marathon the next
year, is single digit percent.
It'll be really low. And why?
It's because desire is easy to say,
like really simple. I want to do that.
That looks amazing. I'm going
to be the best salesperson.
To pull that off takes a
shed load of hard work,
and a tonne of commitment,
and a lot of knocks,
and a lot of self-reflection,
and a lot of feedback,
and a lot of effort, and a
lot of self-determination.
That's why loads of people don't run
the London Marathon the following year
because they get injured or knocked
or they don't like the weather,
or they get unmotivated, or
their goal isn't focused enough,
and the will to sell starts there.
It's really easy to find
someone to talk a good game.
It's harder to find the ones who then
deliver on that desire with utter
unobliterated commitment
to get there and succeed.
That's what I think the difference is,
and that's where will to sell starts.
I've definitely been the person who's
punched the air watching the Great North
Run on TV, going, I'll do that one day.
Maybe that's next year. Let's do it.
Let's get the will to run.
How do we get people standing up and
going, you know what, this is my year?
The really interesting thing, the
minute you have that conversation with
people, they're already changing because
they don't like being called out on
it. I am committed. It's
like, Are you? Show me.
All right, we'll check back in in a week.
Let's see how your progress
you've made. Cool, let's do it.
Just that conversation will change
people's mindsets to where they are.
Sorry, Steve, I'll hand
over to you to answer that.
No, it was great.
One of the key values of the OMG is
determining what people struggle with
despite being highly motivated.
So, for instance, you can
have a burning desire,
so we've done the goal piece, right?
You can have a deeply
emotionally compelling goal,
you can want something really badly,
but just wanting it doesn't guarantee
that you're going to get there, right,
because there's lots of other things to
Tim's point at play.
One of the things that the OMG does
is it will pinpoint areas that are
blockers, so you might
really want something,
but if you've got what I call
childhood scripting issues,
because that's where the root is.
If you've got, for instance, an
overly developed need for approval,
if you've got a problem
with talking to authority,
if you've got any of those issues, then
they're going to be highlighted in the
OMG.
Now, one of the things that we'll then
do from a coaching point of view is
say, look, in order to get what you
want, you are going to have to step
outside of a comfort zone, so the OMG
will highlight what are the areas that
we're going to take you out
of your comfort zone on,
and the goal setting, coming back to
that, is what will sustain you there.
It'll be uncomfortable, because human
beings are all programmed to seek out
comfort, and we're all programmed to
cling on to it for dear life when we find
it.
the only way that you're going to step
outside of a comfort zone and run the
marathon is if there is a
greater discomfort at stake.
So, in other words, the discomfort
of not achieving the goal,
if that outweighs the discomfort of
having to do what you need to do to get
there, then you'll do it.
If it doesn't, you won't.
So, the value for me, the key
value in the OMG is to say,
first of all, is the
desire there, but also,
even with the desire there, what are
the blockers and roadblocks we can work
on to give you the greatest
chance of achieving the goal.
So let's talk about comfort zones, having
a greater appetite for coaching and
the willingness to step
outside the comfort zone.
Personally, I love a comfort zone.
We all do. Human beings.
Even when we're out and about, I'll
always say I'm looking forward to getting
back home and having a cup of tea,
which my wife always tells me off for.
How do we get people to step
out of that comfort zone?
How do we initiate that behaviour change?
And what are some of the successes
that both of you have seen with that?
First of all, recruit
people who are up for it,
people who've demonstrated an appetite
to push themselves through their lives,
and that can take all
sorts of shapes and forms.
Interestingly, I was talking to a new
recruit in a customer I work with,
a new recruit a couple of hours
ago, never met them before,
I helped recruit them,
but I hadn't met them,
and what was interesting
is when you met them,
like, what do you do to push yourself
on? She went, I love scaring myself.
I said, okay, what have you got planned?
She's going swimming with bull
sharks. I'm like, this is mad.
Okay, fine, you go for that.
So that was a real example, but I think
look for people who've got an appetite
to push and drive, and it
can be really small things,
big things, but often people who've
had to drive through adversity or
difficult backgrounds or
difficult environments,
and push through to succeed.
They often do make good salespeople,
But you can't always just change your
team into the perfect team.
You have what you've got.
In that case, build little
challenges that will stretch people,
and like a really good example
of that, which everybody can do,
is role play.
Every business we go into, we say,
right, today we're going to do some role
play.
I never get people going, yeah, that's
going to be the best afternoon we've
ever had.
But if you do it, you're
going to stretch everybody,
and at the end of it,
they all go, actually,
that was more useful than I
thought it was going to be,
and they all realise, I did
feel a bit nervous and scared,
and we came out of it okay.
So, as leaders, as managers of
your teams, you can all do that,
like in your next team meeting, you could
have 10 minutes of role play and put
two people in the team on the spot.
Right, we're going to simulate a client
call. Here's the context. Off you go.
They're going to hate you
for it for five minutes,
but you do it and repeat it and repeat it.
People get more used to that
stretch and that little thing.
So, I think little things like
that, which start to stretch people,
is a really good tactic to get people
more used to being out of their comfort
zone.
And clearly, as a manager, you're there
to support and empathise and patch
them up if they fall
over and hurt themselves.
That's what we should naturally
be doing. That's where you start.
It starts by building into the habits
and how you operate tiny little
challenges, which stretch people.
If we define stepping out of a comfort
zone as acting outside of our current
belief system, right? So I'm not
comfortable talking to C-suite execs.
Me talking to C-suite execs is therefore
stepping out of my comfort zone.
So here's the process for
overcoming self-limiting beliefs.
Step number one, you write
down the self-limiting belief:
I'm not comfortable
talking to C-suite execs.
Step number two, you write
down the opposite belief,
you make it first person, present
tense, and emotionally charged.
So it sounds like, I am completely
comfortable talking with chief execs of any
size business. Step three
is where the magic happens.
When you wake up tomorrow, just
believe the second belief. That's it.
Are you cured? Are you fixed?
Probably not.
Of course you're not. What
a ridiculous thing to say.
This is the massive problem that we
have with motivational speakers who are
telling us to believe something
different from our current belief system.
Our current belief system is deeply
ingrained, maybe over many years.
So how do we change our belief system?
The point is, you can't wait until you
believe something different to change
your behaviour, because you will
always be - you'll be waiting forever.
If you had two salespeople, one
who believed belief number one,
I'm not comfortable
talking with chief execs,
and one who believed belief number
two, I'm completely comfortable talking
with chief execs, you'd be able to
notice that those two salespeople behave
differently.
So if you write down the differences
in behaviour between salesperson number
one and salesperson number two, and
you get salesperson number one to carry
out the behaviours of
salesperson number two,
so they're going to do
the same behaviours.
The difference is that salesperson number
one is going to be uncomfortable as
all heck, where salesperson
number two is in a comfort zone.
that's where coaching comes in.
That's where you're
going to need coaching,
whether it's external coaching
or coaching as a leader,
to support that person in carrying
out the behaviours even though they're
operating for a time outside
their current belief system.
it is those new behaviours, those new
activities that are going to give them
new experiences, which are
going to become new results,
which are going to become new
references, and then new belief systems.
So that's how you do it.
You've got to attack it from
the behavioural point of view,
not the belief point of view.
You know what I'm thinking as well, Steve.
If my leader puts this in place
and then starts asking me,
how are these new behavioural
changes working for you?
What am I probably going to say to them?
Oh yeah, that's going really well,
thank you. Because you set that up.
Having an outside perspective on that,
having someone you can trust and work
with, matters.
Coaching doesn't work unless you are
100% honest about how those behavioural
changes are working. Thanks for listening.
There's more where that came from, so
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