Coffee's for Closers

7Motivation

‘You can have everything in life you want by simply helping people get what they want’.

—Zig Ziglar

Motivation is what drives us every single day. It's what gets us up in the morning to work five days a week, and for some people, even more. But, as all humans are different, we have different things that motivate us. One person could be motivated by money, and for another it could be recognition.

Many salespeople are financially motivated, and they say, ‘I simply want to earn lots of money’. In my experience, the more specific the better, it becomes much more motivational. You would hardly go into the gym and say I'd like to become a beef cake.

I remember in 2005 when I decided it was time to propose. My first task was to enquire about an engagement ring and off with the mother‐in‐law I went. At £2000, I thought this was going to take me forever, as I was only able to put away around £20 a month. So, I set myself goals and broke it down specifically.

At that time I was selling software and had a very transparent commission structure. So, I gave myself six months to save for a ring, so I needed to save £333 a month to achieve my goal. This was £83.25 per week, and I worked out an average order value for commission of £45 per deal, so I required two extra deals a week to hit my goal.

My conversion rate at that time was 1 in 2.5 meetings, so I needed to attend a further five meetings per week. As I monitored and measured my figures very closely, I was aware that I ...