Using these three techniques requires mental discipline. Just as the dream of an Olympic gold medal helps athletes push their bodies to their physical limits time and again, they must channel their minds toward positive attitudes. Sales success requires the same persistence and mental discipline.
How can I motivate myself to maintain a positive attitude?
People's motivational drive comes more from internal forces than from external ones. While people who fail in sales often blame external elements, such as a company or its management, the vast majority of these people lack sufficient internal motivation to succeed. People who are successful in sales and in most other endeavors crave success and are, thus, high achievers.
High achievers
People who have strong internal motivation and drive for mastery are high achievers. Research has identified some common characteristics of high achievers:
1 They set goals and objectives.
2 They enjoy solving problems.
3 They take calculated risks.
4 They like immediate feedback on their performance.
5 They take personal responsibility for achieving their goals and objectives.
Looking at these characteristics, we can see that insight and solution selling is an ideal occupation for high achievers, who are more likely to satisfy their needs in sales jobs because of the nature of the tasks required in sales, especially in media sales. Selling requires a continual goal‐setting process. High achievers like selling and are motivated by it because it gives them the opportunity to use their self‐motivation to work to its peak while satisfying their needs to solve problems, help their customers, take risks, and receive immediate performance feedback.
Goal‐Setting Theory and Objective‐Setting Practice
Peter Drucker popularized the importance of setting goals and objectives in his classic book, The Practice of Management, published in 1954. While there is still some question about who first used the term management by objectives (MBO), it is generally conceded that the initial push came from Drucker, who attributes it to Alfred P. Sloan, the managerial and organizational genius who is credited with building up General Motors.
In the 1960s, Edwin A. Locke published a series of articles that detailed his research on goal setting and on how these motivate people. He not only explained why goals work but also proposed some basic rules for setting them. While Drucker, Locke, and most other goal‐setting theorists put their work in a managerial context, these theories also apply to individual goal setting where competence and confidence grow as you get better at your own objectives and goals.
Goal‐setting theory
Goals and objectives have a significant effect on performance if they have the following attributes: clarity, difficulty, and feedback. A goal has a time horizon of more than one year and an objective has a time horizon of less than a year. Therefore, one would set several short‐term objectives to reach a long‐term goal.
Goal clarity
Clarity is the single most important element in setting goals. Goals and objectives must be specific so they can be measured. A general objective of increasing the number of prospecting calls next month is vague, nonspecific, and virtually useless. A more specific objective would be to average two prospecting appointments per day for the next month.
Goal difficulty
Increasing the difficulty of goals and objectives generally amplifies the challenge, which, in turn, raises the effort to meet the challenge. This concept of goal difficulty creates confusion and is where defining the difference between goals and objectives becomes important. Because goals have a long‐term time horizon, it is useful to set goals, and, thus, expectations, high. In the best‐selling book, Built to Last, Collins and Porras’s research shows that one of the things that highly successful companies have in common is that they set BHAGs – Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals. The authors write: “A BHAG should be so clear and compelling that it requires little or no explanation. Remember, a BHAG is a goal – such as climbing a mountain or going to the moon – not a ‘statement.’ If it does not get people juices going it is just not a BHAG.”24 One of the 18 built‐to‐last companies was Merck. Its BHAG was “to become the preeminent drug maker worldwide, via massive R&D and new products that cure disease.”25
On the other hand, short‐term objectives set by salespeople and their management should be set to make people feel like winners, a deep‐seated need. Unfortunately, management often set BHAGs, or “stretch,” short‐term objectives, believing that they motivate people. Figure 4.1 shows the relationship between motivation and objective difficulty. Setting a very low objective has no motivating effect. On the other hand, setting an objective too high demotivates people because they give up the moment they realize that the objective is unachievable. Working hard to achieve an impossible objective creates cognitive dissonance, so people quit making an effort in order to bring thinking and action into internal harmony.
As you can see from Figure 4.1, the best objectives are moderately difficult, yet provide a challenge because they are perceived as attainable and are, thus, motivating. Contrary to what many managers believe, the trick in setting objectives is to set them on the low side of the moderately difficult peak to ensure that they can be reached with a strong effort and, thus, allow people to feel successful. Unfortunately, too often managers set objectives on the high side of the moderately difficult peak and, thus, unintentionally reduce people’s motivation. It is better, in fact, to be a little on the low side than to be a little on the high side because you want to make sure that the salespeople feel like winners.
Figure 4.1 Objective difficulty and motivation
Interestingly, people with low self‐esteem often set unrealistically high goals because they expect failure. Already viewing themselves as losers, they are more comfortable reinforcing this view in advance. Claiming that “the objective was too high,” allows them to quit before trying rather than attempting something difficult that they think they are bound to fail at.
The ideal is to set a series of moderately difficult, challenging objectives that get progressively more difficult and challenging as each objective is achieved (a critical element in deliberate practice). This series of realistic step‐by‐step, increasingly more difficult objectives will eventually lead you to your BHAG.
In 2018 in his annual letter to stockholders, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos related a story that reinforced the importance of setting realistic goals. The title of his anecdote was “Perfect handstands,” and read: “A close friend recently decided to learn to do a perfect free‐standing handstand… In the very first lesson, the coach gave her some wonderful advice. … ‘The reality is that it takes about six months of daily practice. If you think you should be able to do it in two weeks, you’re just going to end up quitting.’ Unrealistic beliefs…kill high standards.”26
Setting