Effective Sales Job Motivation

There are two kinds of external motivation: fear and incentives. Fear is a powerful motivator and it is a usual response to a threatening situation. It is highly soul destroying and stressful. It stifles imagination, limits one’s potential and makes one stagnant. Failure causes the person to lower their standards.

Incentives, on the other hand, challenge you to respond positively to a reward, such as bonuses and commissions. You get to enjoy something because you’ve done well.

The only thing is that the impact of external motivation is temporary. They are short-lived, set limitations and cannot sustain us through bad times.

Some questions to ask yourself, especially when you feel your motivation is slipping:

1. What is my meaningful motive? Am I focused?
2. Have I tapped my inner resources? What actions do I have to take to overcome this obstacle?
3. What’s driving me now to do this? Am I afraid or do I believe that I am capable of doing it?
4. Are my expectations high? Is there enough challenge for me or is it too much and unachievable?
5. What is my purpose? Have I set my goal, what do I want to achieve, what to contribute and to whom?

You’ll just have to get used to it, for the recession is here and people are keeping what little cash they have in their pockets. The sales arena just got tougher and sales staff are some of the first ones to go in a sales/marketing oriented business. Though many have closed shop due to strain from rising costs, jobs are there and stores are still hiring, just not in the numbers they used to.
Just continue with your job, always on the look out for new ways to sell products. Convince your bosses to sponsor more and more new media through the internet. Blogging, podcast and web site sponsorships are some of the best and fastest ad campaign tools. Podcasting has grown in leaps and bounds so get more of those for more people prefer their media on the go, not bound by wires and other traditional media.

Image Source: www.careerhuntingtips.com
actually aside from blog writing. i am also into multi-level marketing or networking. i became exposed to Multi level marketing because the first time i tried to job search only MLM Company reply to me because i’m only 4th year highschool that time. of course at first you will be shocked because you need to put investment, but because i’m only a student and i don’t have enough money to invest so they just hire me as a refferal agent in short if i will refer some one who might interested to what they offer that’s the time that i will earn my commission. with that style of compensation i must not be motivate but since i’m only after the salary i was convinced to earn the half of what they are earning. sales is not an easy job but with sales everything is worth paying for. especially in multi-level marketing because as a networker you should be able to sell the same time but with much higher price that the market price.

According to Dr. Martin Seligman, attitudes of optimism and pessimism affect job performance. Studies he did on applicants for life insurance sales included people who failed the industry test, but tested well on optimism. The research was programmed for two years and concluded with two basic findings.

First, within the group that was hired, the optimists outsold the pessimists. Second, the group of optimists who failed the industry test outsold everyone. This supports the theory that human potential has two factors. One is ability and second is optimism or pessimism. It shows there is a science that interplays between our attitudes and our actions.

Are you motivated by the work, or the gain?

Some people find fulfillment in the work itself and not on what they earn. It does not mean that they’re working for free but they get more satisfaction in their work rather from the pay they receive. Many can afford to retire but choose to continue because they do enjoy what they’re doing and having to stop means cutting off their means of expression.

You’re satisfied when you’ve closed a sale because you met your objective. You get paid but you derive satisfaction more because you feel good you’ve done the job and the pay is just an added perk.