The Secret to Motivation

Have you ever tried to motivate yourself to start a task? Did you conjure up all sorts of means, but after all the conjuring, nothing changed? You were still stuck. Except, you were also feeling guilty about having wasted more time without getting any closer to the accomplishment you were after.

If you can relate to the experience, you’re not alone. Everyone has been in that situation at some time in their life...perhaps many times. And like others, you, too, discovered that waiting for the wave of motivation to wash over you and get you moving was futile.

So, what is the secret to creating real, meaningful, and lasting motivation? The secret is...

Well, there is no secret. Motivation is not some external force that can be switched on or off at will. It’s not some magical feeling that comes over you, energizes you, and propels you into action. And, it doesn’t come in pill form with a “take as needed” prescription.

So, what is motivation and where does it come from?

Motivation comes from the goals you truly desire to accomplish AND your commitment to do whatever is necessary to accomplish the goals.

The goals don’t have to be glamorous or earthshaking; they can be little goals. They can reach into the future, or they can take you to tomorrow or next week. They can come from need...or from desire. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they are YOUR goals. Goals that hold real meaning for you.

How does it work?

If you have a set of worthwhile goals, you’ll also need a plan of action—a sequence of specific measurable steps—to accomplish the goals. Then, you can set your plan into action at any time—day or night—simply by taking the first step...which, upon completion, will provide the motivation to take the next step and then the next.

So, maybe there is a secret to motivation after all. If so, here it is: actions generate the feeling.

Develop meaningful goals and a plan for their accomplishment. Then, make a commitment to act...to take the first step of the plan. The motivation you’ve been waiting for has been there all along. It’s just been waiting for you to do something.

A mistake many salespeople make in their efforts to find new business and grow their client bases is to expand their market search rather than narrowing it. Instead of zeroing in on specific market segments, they expand their searches by including prospects who only loosely match their ideal client profiles.

If you have a true mass market product, the “reach out to everyone” approach may be appropriate. But, for most salespeople, that’s not the case. Typically, there are specific products or services, or specific aspects of those products and services, which provide the most benefit to a particular segment of their market. And, that niche is where they should be focusing their efforts.

There are two requirements to implement a niche market strategy. Obviously, you must define your niche market. With which customers do you have the best relationships? Which ones buy the most products or pay you the highest fees? And, here is the most important question: why do they buy the most products and pay you the highest fees? When you answer these questions, you will be able to create an ideal prospect profile that defines the target at which to aim and becomes a yardstick by which to measure the quality of potential prospects. And, you will also be able to begin working on the second requirement, which is to refine your message.

When you narrow your target market, you can expect to be calling on a significant number of prospects that are already using the products and services of your competitors. Your marketing message must differentiate your company from those competitors by highlighting your niche market specialty. Before they invest any time on the phone talking to you, much less invite you in for a meeting, prospects want to know, “What’s in it for me?”. Your message must succinctly highlight what prospects will gain by working with your company and/or what they are losing by not working with your company. Here are two examples:

We help independent retailers avoid wasting their advertising budgets on flashy advertising that doesn’t drive customers into the stores.

We make it possible for manufacturers to substantially reduce the cost of meeting their chemical recycling mandates without complicating or violating compliance requirements.

By narrowing your focus to prospects who fit your ideal client profile and adjusting your marketing message to reflect the unique aspects of your product or service valued by ideal clients, you will not only get their attention, but their business as well.