Transcript:
Darren asks, “How can we become more motivated to complete the mundane or necessary daily tasks that salespeople have to complete?”
Speaker 1:
Yeah. There’s a lot of activities that are involved in filling your funnel and getting those calls in. I think we should really think about: what are those key metrics that we’re gonna be tracking? What are those activities that do produce the results we’re looking for? I like, ideally, to track those metrics, make a game out of it if we can. So, if that’s within the sales team, maybe a little friendly or healthy competition. Maybe some type of a scoreboard that we’re tracking; or scorecard. I think it’s great to be able to see. We know that if we see x number of calls, it’s gonna result in y number of meetings. And for every 10 meetings, we’re gonna get z number of opportunities. Those opportunities are gonna close. That’s how we actually make our number. Often times we get so focused on the results, right? Did we make our number this quarter or not? But it’s really hard to say, well, I don’t know what to do. We’re working really hard. No, let’s go back up to the funnel, to the very first call, the very first emails, look at those numbers, and start tracking.
We always say, sure, there are great systems out there that’ll do that, and very elaborate dashboards and reports that you can provide. If you don’t have those, or if they’re not giving you what you need, even just a tally sheet, right? Just keep your own batting average. Everybody should have a general idea of, well, for every call, how many times do they pick up? For every time they pick up, how many times to I actually get a meeting? Once we get those numbers, now we can start actually improving the metrics, and managing them, and trying different things, and see how they result. I think that’s one way of breaking out of some of the drudgery, and mundane tasks, as you said, that go, sometimes, with the day to day sales position.
Speaker 2:
I’m a fan of time bounding. So, if you’ve got mundane tasks, and they recur daily, don’t let them be your procrastination. Don’t let them be your distraction from the work of selling. Instead, time bound them. So you might say, look, I know I have to do these reports and these orders. Here’s the time of day when I do that. It’s 8:00 to 9:00. Or, it’s 8:30 to 9:00, and 4:30 to 5:00. You pick. But, you limit the time, and you force yourself. It’s not about multitasking during that time. It’s about, head down, do that work, get done with it, and don’t let it be in your way. As it crops up through the day, you’re putting it into that basket to get to during your time-bound, set aside, focused activity.
Speaker 3:
We use motivation. It’s as simple as that. It’s terrible for these tasks that you gotta use every day. You’ve gotta use habits; you’ve gotta form habits versus having to use your willpower. Willpower, and science has shown this, many times in many studies, you only have a finite amount of it each day. It’s like a battery that recharges overnight. Without borrowing everyone too much, that’s literally what’s happening. When you go to sleep, there’s all kinds of neurotoxins and weird chemicals in your brain that is created as a waste product. As your brain functions throughout the day, that fades off, and so to aid your spinal fluid. You literally reset. Your battery recharges every single day, but this willpower is only finite.
A good example of this: you don’t crave crappy food first thing in the morning, right? If you’re gonna have a health meal, it’s probably breakfast, all odds, that you’re gonna do it. But, you’ve been working hard. It’s 8, 9, 10 o’clock. Your willpower’s low. That’s when you run for that pizza, that soda, whatever it is. So, with that said, we wanna reduce the amount of willpower we’ve gotta use on these tasks. ‘Cause, they’re mundane, but they’re daily; they’re important. It could be poll calling. It could be doing your emails. It could be reporting. Whatever it is. We need to turn them into a habit. That is the solution for this.
Speaker 4:
We can become more motivated once we know what our purpose is. If we have identified what our true purpose in life is, and we feel that there is a fire burning within us, it’s gonna be much easier to stay and find motivation. You can’t expect everybody around you to motivate you. You have to be motivated from within, and you have to have a trigger that’s gonna pull you forward, through the dark times. That could be a rough one hour. It could be a rough week or a rough quarter. But, unless you’re in touch with that purpose, you’re gonna have an uphill climb all the time, when you hit those rough patches. Also, keep in mind that motivation comes and goes in waves. It’s not something that somebody has permanently. We’re not 100% motivated 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So, if you understand the undulations of motivation, and that motivation ebbs and flows, you could roll with it. You could find it much easier to be motivated when you understand that it’s gonna be happening in temporary evolutions.
Speaker 5:
I’m a big fan of list voting. I think that, if we put ’em down, they’re really not as daunting as we think. So, we think about making 60 calls, let’s say, if that was one of our goals. It may look pretty daunting when we look at it. We think about making 60 calls, and the number that are gonna go to voicemail, and the number of actual conversations we’re gonna have; let’s assume a 10% connect rate. We’re talking just about six conversations. Those conversations can lead to meetings or appointments. So, I think that if we write them down, we figure out how long does that really take? If you ask someone, how long does 60 calls take? They might tell you that that’s half a day. No, it’s probably closer to 90 minutes. It’s a very small part of the overall day.
So, whatever those mundane tasks are, whether it’s updating sales forms, making cold calls, sending out a series of emails that get you, really, a campaign that you’re running. Those are all things that really, I think, would lend themselves to building a list, doing it, and just applying it on a regular basis. No magic, answer there.
