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Re: What Really Motivates Sales People

jeffreytsooey — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:23:32 -0000

mmmm. Deep thoughts here! Aren't 'incentives' EXTERNAL, and 'motivators' INTERNAL? That might be an important distinction, too.

People are motivated inside (or from within), so I guess money can't be a motivator, unless you swallow a dollar... but still, I think the point is that the idea that salespeople have about what money will give them (long/short term, etc.) is indeed inside and those things or thoughts motivate them.

Re: What Really Motivates Sales People

jeffreytsooey — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:54:42 -0000

For a true 'money motivated' person, many times (not always) no amount of money is ever enough. They always want to see if they can increase the number. They still love the ring of that cash register 'Cha-Ching!'.

By the way... sent the statistics via discus, but i don't know if they got to you, so if there's another email, let me know.

Jeff

Re: What Really Motivates Sales People

jeffreytsooey — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:49:15 -0000

'Utilitarian' is defined as valuing money and what is 'useful'. i.e.
Maximum ROI. People who are high Utilitarian want to get the most out of
life, business, time, etc. They hate waste of any kind, especially time and
money, but other things as well. The reason they like money so much is not
because they're greedy. They like it because money is USEFUL. You can use
it for lots of things. It is easily stored (holds value pretty well). It,
properly invested, will make more of itself, etc.

Note that out of the top sales leaders in the US and Germany, 70 or so % of
them had Utilitarian as their TOP value. (The graphs don't show this, but
if you looked at those that had Utilitarian in their top 3 (out of 6), it
would be 90 or so % of all top sales performers).

By the way, the top producers in this survey were taken from over 20
different industries, so there's no cultural bias here.

To be fair, this doesn't mean that salespeople that are greedy or solely
money-focused are the most successful long term. That's not the study's
focus. All it says is that most top producing salespeople value money very
highly, and the majority of them value it as #1. But you can't paint people
into a corner and say that just because it's the most important thing they
value at work, that there aren't more important things in their life or that
they don't take other important things into careful consideration even in
the boardroom. The study does show, however, that money and 'usefulness'...
i.e. maximizing ROI IS INDEED THE END GAME FOR THESE GUYS (at least at
work).

There are exceptions. For instance, if you take Tony Robbins' sales team,
they are all highly altruistic... because of the culture that Tony created,
and that culture attracted altruistic salespeople that are very effective.

My team of coaches all do their own sales, and many are not money motivated,
but that's because the rewards I offer aren't money related for the most
part (more of the 'change the world' kind of motivation).

Whenever I work with big sales teams (and I've worked with quite a few), we
run statistical analysis on the values of the team. The top quartile are
always #1 'Utilitarian', with FEW exceptions. I would attach those stats,
but for client privacy issues.

Feel free to post the attached and any or all of my comments if you'd like.

Respectfully yours,
Jeffrey T. Sooey, CPBA CPVA CAIA CPAC
President & CEO, JTS Advisors
jeffrey@jtsadvisors.com
Office (619) 286-1797
Fax (309) 424-4759
Private Cell (619) 920-2015
I return calls within 72 hours (emails as I am able).
www.coachestrainingblog.com...

For assessment needs, call Sue Koch, Director of Profiling and Assessments
(949) 212-4345 soozycoach@gmail.com

For scheduling, billing, workshop booking, and customer service, call Jackie
Altman, Executive Assistant to Jeffrey T. Sooey (619) 434-9805 / (619)
851-7496 jackiealtman@gmail.com

Re: What Really Motivates Sales People

jeffreytsooey — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:58:47 -0000

You're deluded and living in a fantasy world. (not a bad thing for a creative visionary, mind you).

Look at any study on sales people and what motivates them, and you'll find that 90% of top producing salespeople are motivated by money (you can call it 'rewards' if you want) and getting a high as possible ROI (yes, MONEY is valuable and it can be an indicator of high ROI). Recognition is SECOND in any stats study I've seen (albeit sometimes a close second).

Oh, and BTW, you may not hire salespeople that you THINK are money motivated, but if I take a sample of your top salespeople, I bet on a STATISTICALLY VALIDATED ASSESSMENT that 90% of them will come up as having high ROI (aka MONEY), and their #1 motivator BY FAR. Either they are telling you what you want to hear (they ARE good salespeople, duh), or you have your head in the sand, or they DO value other things and money is a given for them, BUT when push comes to shove, money is STILL #1 (it just doesn't come up in an interview as such).

It's important to get the reality when discussing something that for most is just opinion. Let's run the real numbers, shall we, and see who's assumptions are correct?