Maslow’s Guide to Sales Management Motivation

 

When it comes to sales management, if you cannot motivate your sales force, then you are done.
And when it comes to motivation, no one has gotten more press on motivation than Abraham Maslow.
Don’t know who Maslow is?
Well as a sales management professional, you should.
At the very least you should use a few of his tips to motivate your sales force.

Sales Management Motivation Maslow Style

If you don’t know, Abraham Maslow is commonly known as “the father of modern motivational theory” and is one of the only theorists on motivation whose ideas have actually withstood the test of time…in spite of hundred of eggheads who have tried to dispute his theories.
In short, Maslow states that each person is motivated by a series of physiological and psychological needs that he put into his “Needs Hierarchy Theory”.
These needs are listed from basic to advanced, the lowest common denominator being these five:
1.Hunger, thirst
2. Sleep
3. Safety, security
4. Shelter
5. Health
As a sales management professional, you have to figure that most of your sales force has these five basic needs covered, right?
So what does this have to do with sales management motivation?
 Everything.

Where Maslow gets interesting is where he discusses the next level of motivation.
This is the stuff you can use to motivate your sales team so you motivate each one exactly the way they are hard wired…its called the Seven Forces of Motivation.

Sales Management and The Seven Forces of Motivation

Once you take care of the first basic five, Maslow then gets into the next seven.
The funny thing is the seven forces of motivation not only inspire salespeople but they inspire all people. So you can use these techniques to motivate your kids, your spouse and your sales team.
The point is that each person is motivated by the five above but each of us is really  inspired and motivated by a combination of the following seven forces of motivation.

1. The need for belonging
2. The need for independence
3. The need for importance
4. The need for knowledge
5. The need for assertiveness
6. The need for recognition
7. The need for affiliation

So if we are all a combination of all the first five motivators and a mix of all the seven to varying degrees, then doesn’t it make sense to speak and motivate your sales team all in different ways?
Or would you motivate someone who has a deep and profound need to have an affiliation with a higher cause or a larger organization the exact same way you would motivate the salesperson who has a profound need for independence?
No, you wouldn’t.
So what do you do?
The first step is realizing that you need to treat all your sales reps independently and completely different. If you motivate them and treat them all the same then you can never get the most out of them.
But if you tailor make your motivations sales management strategies just for them, then you will hit the bull’s eye every time…and motive them to unseen of heights of sales and sales management success.
So take the first step and manage each of your salespeople differently, that’s step number one.
Look at your sales team and compare them to the seven forces of motivation. Then formulate a motivational plan to get the best from them based up on their unique profile.
When you do that, you’ll be that much farther to true sales management success.

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