Sales Leaders Rule #15: People work harder for their reasons than they do yours.

There's a common assumption that linking the corporate goal to personal income will motivate sales people. For instance, hitting quota means the salesperson will make over a hundred thousand dollars. Sometimes that is enough to motivate a person but not always. Behind the scenes each person is saying, "What would I do with that $100,000? Would I save it for retirement? Would I put my kids through college without any debt? Would I buy a new car? Would I buy a new home? Is that enough to care about?" If the sales person can't come up with a compelling use for the income then they won't be motivated to meet the goal. It's imperative that managers motivate the individual to hit the corporate goal by associating it to their personal objectives.

Most people translate what they're going to be paid into what it does for them but many often struggle to put that in concrete terms. You need to do that for them because people work harder for themselves than they do for you.

Understand what makes each individual tick. List your sales people, next to that see if you can list the top three goals that they have. What are their personal goals? Why are they motivated to achieve? What are they working toward?

If you find that you don't have a solid understanding of your people's motivations sit them down and have a direct conversation.

"You know Michael, just out of curiosity, I'm trying to figure out, what are your top three goals? If you hit your number this year, you're going to make $100,000. What would you do with that?"

"Well, I'd buy myself a new car."

"Great, what type of car would you buy?"

"Oh, I'd buy myself an Audi."

"That's a great car. Why that one? What else would you do?"

"I'd put my kids through college."

"Where do they want to go?"

"Well, they want to go to XYZ."

"That's great. Have you visited the school or set up a savings total for tuition?"

And now a couple of things are happening. One, you better understand what makes your people tick. You're getting a concrete idea of what will motivate them to meet goals and helping to define it for them at the same time. It makes it real for the sales person so they can easily envision the connection between the income and something that truly matters to them.

And so, under that scenario, it's a good idea to make a tangible reminder of why they are working. Suggest to them, "Let's get a picture of an Audi. Let's get a picture of the child that you want to send to college without debt. Let's get a picture of where you want to go on vacation.” Prominently displaying those reminders at the person's workstation will keep their personal goals top of mind so that they consistently work toward their income goal.

True goals are never a dollar amount. True goals are objectives that personally resonate with an individual; the new car, the college tuition, the retirement savings, the dream vacation. Why? Because these are things that they want personally or for friends and family. That's when they're going to go above and beyond. The bottom line is, the more you know about what drives the sales person personally, the better you will be at connecting those objectives to personal income and company goals.