Why would a sales team need motivating when they should be the ones who have all the skills required to convince others to buy products and services? In other words they are motivators to others to do something, so why should they having problems selling? Rest assured, the need to motivate is ever present in all we do.
The answer to having these problems is that some time or another “the steam” just gets fizzled out even from the best of us. And, the absence of this sales “steam” would require some rejuvenation by some other means.
So, how do we go about rejuvenating this “new head of steam” to bring up motivation levels? We need to motivate, motivate one another to be the best we can be. In this case the problem is attacked this way.
The traditional way is to hire another specialist in human behavior studies, a psychologist perhaps, and hold a series of seminars and “focus groups” sessions. Since this a done with budget constraints in mind, the employee -sales associate etc., is trained to a point that makes him ready to produce enough sales to boost revenues in his company. It is a self interest method to the company’s benefit for the most part.
But, true motivation, for the long term benefit of the person is not achieved through seminars and focus groups but rather in a more comprehensive way that involves the person’s whole self.
Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist said it best when he indicated that it is better to develop a person’s basic potential rather than using other “cookie cutter” methods to motivate him. More long term benefits can accrue this way for the person.
This idea was developed into a theory called: “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.” It is a five tier model, demonstrated by an equilateral triangle. The bottom tier begins with satisfying basic human needs -food, water, shelter etc., and as these needs are met he progresses to a higher level tier until he reaches a level of “self actualization,” the highest level, the level of enlightenment.
Deficiency, in needs not satisfied, in any of these Tiers will result in loss of motivation. In fact, Maslow’s, first four needs are viewed as deficiency needs. In other words, Motivation stops working once these needs are satisfied. But, it is the self actualization level that drives us throughout our entire lives to achieve more… So, if a business provides a setting for each employee to achieve more, the company as well as the employee will be drive to be the best there is.
But, self actualization is something you never can realize fully some would argue. It requires constant effort on our part to be our best and to achieve our highest potential in life. Yet another thought is that self actualization is goal specific. This means that once the goal set is achieved, as human nature is, we will strive to achieve another higher goal -so we are constantly battling with this “self actualization’ concept. High achievers find this a very exciting level.
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But again, this is not the whole picture. There is more to it than just this.
The other thought is to look at your whole self. Once you address the whole self, more can be achieve and will be more meaningful. As the theory says:” The whole a greater than the sum of its parts”. To learn about the entire process of motivation and more–from the ground up involving your entire self, follow the link in my bio-box below. You will be amazed at the number of things you can do to motivate your self to achieve anything you want in life. So, in essence, we need to motivate one another to become the best in our lives.
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