For many professional salespeople motivation is the deepest and most far-reaching concern. It touches every aspect of job performance. Without motivation salespeople would never make the first call in the morning and could not make it to the last call of the day.

Although product knowledge, skills, customer concern, follow-up, the ability to listen, a smooth presentation, solid qualified prospect lists and good closing lines are all essential for success in selling, motivation is more important to most salespeople. When you examine just how motivation works, it’s easy to see why salespeople can’t live without it and managers can’t manage unless they can dispense it freely.

During the past 15 years, Personal Selling Power has interviewed over 150 superachievers to explore the subject of motivation. We’ve talked to billionaires, sports champions, psychologists, CEOs, military leaders, national speakers and famous entertainers to find out how they motivate themselves and their teams. Without exception, every one of these superachievers was highly motivated.

Mary Kay Ash, the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, told Personal Selling Power, “Motivation is the ability to inspire a person to reach down within himself or herself, to bring to fruition those wonderful ‘seeds of greatness’ that God planted in each of us.”

Motivation is an intangible resource that, if harnessed, can lead to extraordinary achievement and success. The student of motivation must find two kinds of inner power: the power to overcome difficulties and the power to turn possibilities into reality.

Many people think that they fully understand the process of motivation, but their results suggest that they don’t. Their illusion of knowledge prevents them from getting motivated. Daniel Boorstin wrote in his book The Discoverers: “The great obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents and the ocean was not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.”

In the first part of this article we will review the key concepts of America’s leading motivators; in the second part we share 10 action steps you can use to motivate yourself; the third part will describe 10 specific techniques you can use to motivate others.

Part one

Great Thoughts from America’s Top Motivators

A Positive Mental Attitude

In 1960, Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone wrote a bestselling book titled Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude. When interviewed by Personal Selling Power, Stone explained the basis of the book: “No matter how tough the problem, you can conquer it with a positive mental attitude (PMA). With every victory over adversity, you grow in wisdom, stature and experience. You become a better, bigger, more successful person each time you meet a problem.”

For many years, Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone were the top motivational speakers in the country. Their lectures were titled “The PMA Science of Success.” Hill spent many years studying the most successful people of his time. He realized that motivation begins in the mind of the achiever.

Stone stated that 98 out of every 100 people who are dissatisfied with their world do not have a clear picture in their minds of the world they would like for themselves. Stone, who was 86 years old at the time the PSP interview took place, raised his voice, almost to the point of shouting: “Think of it! Think of the people who drift aimlessly through life, dissatisfied, struggling against a great many things, but without a clear-cut goal!” He reflected on the legendary PMA speaking rallies, saying, “We taught individuals how to use their own minds.”

Many modern-day motivators have worked the message of PMA into their speeches. They realize that people have a never-ending thirst for practical ideas on how to improve their minds, their performance and their lives. At first, the world paid little attention to Hill and Stone, but soon their PMA rallies were drawing over 1,000 people a session. Stone and Hill paved the road for America’s success motivation business.

The Strangest Secret

In 1987, Personal Selling Power interviewed Earl Nightingale, the co-founder of Nightingale-Conant Corporation, one of the nation’s leading producers of motivational audio cassettes. Nightingale remembered his mentor Napoleon Hill, saying: “When I was 29, I was reading his book Think and Grow Rich. I came across six words that made a big difference in my life: ‘We become what we think about.’ When I saw that, I sat up. All of a sudden, all the lights went on and I said, ‘That’s it. That is what I have been reading over and over again.’ That is what Buddha meant when he said, ‘As the wheel follows the ox behind, we will become what our thoughts have made of us.’ I realized that every great philosopher had said much the same thing in different words. I had read, ‘As ye believe, so shall it be done unto you.’ In so many different ways I had been reading that great line over and over again. It just revolutionized my life.”

Earl Nightingale suggested that thinking was a science, a discipline to be mastered. Without the proper thinking skills, motivation and success would be impossible.

Nightingale examined the thoughts of great writers, poets, thinkers and philosophers and assembled a great library of books that provided him with a never-ending source of positive thoughts and inspiration. He explained: “Success education is like a fine painting that has thousands of little dabs of paint, none of which you are particularly aware of but which in total comprise the finished work. A person with an ongoing success education has been touched by so many great authors, fine thoughts and great lines.”

Nightingale found that reading was a great way to recharge his motivation. “We are all subject to moods,” he said. “When I feel down, I reach up and pull a book off the shelf and get myself charged up again. You can’t read these thoughts without getting a little excited about yourself and the world.”

How To Think Positive

Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, the author of The Power of Positive Thinking, was one of the first motivators to suggest that our thoughts and images are mainly responsible for how we feel. He told Personal Selling Power: “You can make yourself sick with your thoughts and you can make yourself well with them. A positive emotion is created by positive thoughts and images. You can say, ‘This is a great day. I am fortunate to sell a wonderful product. I look forward to meeting many interesting people today; I’ll be able to help some of these people and I look forward to learning a great deal today….’ You see, thinking and talking that way adds to your enthusiasm and vitality. Your mind is expanding and all this contributes to your well-being.”

Dr. Peale found that demotivated people have one thing in common: They habitually think negative thoughts. He explained, “If you put yourself down mentally, you are reducing the vitality of your system.”

The greatest motivational challenge comes when people experience problems. Dr. Peale said: “A problem is a concentrated opportunity. The only people that I ever have known to have no problems are in the cemetery. The more problems you have, the more alive you are. Every problem contains the seeds of its own solution.” Instead of complaining about the problem, Dr. Peale suggests that you think of it as an opportunity to grow: “3Everybody I’ve ever known who has succeeded in a big way in life has done so by breaking problems apart. I often say, when the Lord wants to give you the greatest value in this world, he doesn’t wrap it in a sophisticated package and hand it to you on a silver platter. No, he takes this big value and buries it in the heart of a big, tough problem. How he must watch with delight when you’ve got what it takes to break that problem apart and find at its heart what the Bible calls ‘the pearl of great price.'”

How To Condition Yourself

“Attitude is the essence of life,” says Tony Robbins, currently one of the hottest success trainers in America. “The only distinction I’ve found,” he emphasizes, “is that a lot of people have great attitudes but they don’t have very good plans. They become what I call perma-grinners. They go around always smiling, always up. But what do they do with it?”

Robbins doesn’t dismiss the principle of motivation through a positive mental attitude, but he cautions people to be clear about their ultimate destination. “Attitude is too big a frame – too big a generalization,” he says. “Attitude is a set of habitual ways of looking at the world. It’s a set of beliefs – a set of questions that you ask yourself on an ongoing basis. So just saying ‘Have a great attitude’ doesn’t really empower somebody to reach their goals.”

To explore the differences between success and failure, Robbins has interviewed hundreds of salespeople who make over $200,000 a year. He told Personal Selling Power: “I expected they were going to tell me that the difference between success and failure was something technical like closing. That wasn’t it. It all came down to managing their emotions.” Robbins finds that 80 percent of the difference in performance comes from self-management. People who are able to follow through on their beliefs are those who win on a consistent basis.

Robbins suggests that poor self-management habits lead to emotional roadblocks and poor results. He says: “I show people how to literally condition themselves so that every time they go out and talk about their product, they really feel inside all the intensity at the deepest emotional level. I show people the technology of how our brain really works. You’ve got a computer in here and you’ve got to run it properly so you can get any result you really want.”

Robbins offers his students a mental reprogramming technique called “Neuro-Associative Conditioning.” He explains: “For change to happen, we’ve got to change the association. For example, some salespeople think that making cold calls means pleasure because eventually cold calling will lead to sales. But simultaneously they think that cold calling will lead to pain. They have two different neuro-associations that are in conflict. So they make a halfhearted attempt.”

Robbins shows people how to associate pleasure with successful habits (like prospecting). The positive association can lead to a more productive emotional state, which can improve the outcome of cold calling.

Robbins’ reprogramming doesn’t end with changing one single association. Rather, he adds, “I teach people how to condition themselves to be congruent.” People want their beliefs, their values and their actions to be congruent with their direction, their goals and their ultimate destination.

For change to happen, Robbins urges people to be clear about their beliefs, their values and their direction. Once these fundamentals are in place, it becomes easier to transform a minor inconvenience like cold calling into a pleasurable challenge. Robbins’ master secret to motivation: Condition yourself on a deep emotional level to move toward clear goals.

Few people have as clear an understanding of the power of motivation as Dr. Peale, Clement Stone, Napoleon Hill, Tony Robbins or Earl Nightingale. But you don’t have to be a great orator or bestselling author to be able to motivate yourself to peak performance. By following the action steps of these motivation leaders, you can motivate yourself to perform at higher levels while you achieve above – and beyond – your goals.

Part two

10 Action Steps to Motivate Yourself

1. Positive Affirmations

Our inner world is filled with automatic self-talk. Research has shown that negative self-talk can lead to negative moods, even to depression. Positive affirmations can improve our confidence, eliminate fear, reduce stress and increase our motivation to achieve. Successful salespeople use positive affirmations several times during the day. Here are positive affirmations developed by master sales trainer Tom Hopkins.

Build confidence: “Today, I will win. Why? Because I have faith, courage and enthusiasm!”

Be successful: “I have clearly defined goals and I will pursue them with enthusiasm, determination and discipline.”

Reduce stress: “When I feel stress, I will consciously relax and let go of my stress before making the next call.”

Stay positive: “Today, I will see opportunity in every challenge offered to me.”

Eliminate the fear of rejection: “I never take rejection personally. I realize that people can only reject my proposal, not me.”

Keep on winning: “I am a winner, I work for a winning company, and because of my contribution and cooperation we will keep on winning.”

2. Positive Language

When W. Clement Stone developed his insurance company, he translated the words “cold canvassing” into “Gold Canvassing.” As a result, his salespeople made more calls and sold more insurance.

When Dr. Denis Waitley experiences problems he doesn’t say “Why me?” he responds with “Try me!” When sales guru Larry Wilson experiences a disappointment, he doesn’t say “That’s awful!” but responds with “That’s inconvenient!”

Next time you catch yourself using negative words, write them down and transform them into positive expressions. Instead of saying “problem” call it “opportunity”; instead of saying “fear,” say “challenge”; instead of concluding that your action was a “failure,” describe it as a “learning experience.” The moment you transform negative words, you’ll benefit from a motivational boost.

3. Exercise

A Gallup survey found that among men and women who have taken up exercise recently, 66 percent report a more relaxed life, 62 percent a new surge of energy, 55 percent less stress, 51 percent better looks, 46 percent more confidence and self-respect, 45 percent a better love life, 44 percent greater job satisfaction and 37 percent a rise in creativity on the job. Great evidence that exercise motivates. Next time you feel demotivated, give your body a workout. A great idea for you to turn into action. Get moving. Get motivated.

4. Take Risks

Mary Lou Retton told Personal Selling Power: “You’ve got to take chances and not be afraid to fail. You have to push yourself, especially when you’re tired of doing what you’re doing. I talk in my speech about comfort zones. We all live our lives in comfort zones, avoiding risky situations, avoiding the potential to fail. It’s real safe for us. But in order to get ahead of your competition, you’ve got to go out of your comfort zone. Now your comfort zone is something that you live your whole day, your whole life in. You go to work and do what has to be done to get by. You’ve got to try to do more. Try that little new thing, that different approach. Get out of your comfort zone and see if it works. It may, it may not, but you’ll never know if you don’t try.”

5. Positive Reading

Fred Smith, a management consultant, once said, “Change your heroes and you will change the direction of your life.” Read about the lives of successful people like Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Walter Chrysler, Henry Ford, Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Mary Kay Ash, Albert Einstein or Madame Curie and capture their spirit of greatness. There are more inspiring biographies of successful people in the average bookstore in America than you can read in the next 10 years.

6. Positive Visualizations

Your vision of yourself and your possibilities is a mental replica of what you will become. Guide your visualizations carefully. We must carve our own success in the same way that a sculptor chips away at a block of marble. Like the sculptor who creates the finished form from a mental model, we must begin our journey to success by visualizing what we want to become.

The trouble with most people is that they never dare to realize their highest possibilities. They misuse their imagination by daydreaming their lives away. Think positive, imagine success scenarios and clearly visualize your possibilities. Positive visualizations will help you seize the opportunity for greatness within you.

7. Think big

Donald Trump told Personal Selling Power: “Nothing should ever prevent you from thinking big. To me it’s very simple: If you are going to be thinking anyway, you may as well think big. Most people think small because most people are afraid of success, afraid of making decisions and afraid of winning. And that gives people like me a great advantage.”

Have you ever visualized having a million dollars in your bank account? How about 10 million? Try this exercise today: Imagine making $10 million after taxes within one year. Visualize that number in your bank account. Imagine the possibility of spending $50,000 every day, five days a week for an entire year – without running out of money! Visualize what $10 million can buy. Think a little bigger today than yesterday and you’ll create a better future tomorrow.

8. Set Goals

In a survey of Personal Selling Power readers we learned of two major sources of failure: lack of clear goals and difficulties with self-motivation. Zig Ziglar calls people without clear goals “a wandering generality.”

Mo Siegel, the founder of Celestial Seasonings, told Personal Selling Power: “If you don’t set goals, you don’t get anywhere. That’s so basic. The thing that I enjoy in my business is figuring out the overall mission, then establishing goals, developing the strategies, then the action plan and the calendar by which they must be completed.”

Goal setting and motivation are the twin drives that lead to success. While goals empower you, motivation gives you the energy needed to focus on your goal when the going gets tough.

9. Positive Appearance

Superachievers are very careful about their appearance and their movements. They know that looking good translates into feeling good. When you analyze the appearance of many superachievers, you can notice subtle but powerful signs of distinction. It may be a small, unusual accessory, a sharp-looking suit or an impressive tie. It may be an unusual gesture, a special twinkle in their eyes, a confident stride as they enter a room, a powerful handshake or a warm and sincere smile.

Tony Robbins often wears sporty suspenders to project a dynamic image. For a quick motivational boost, he claps his hands or pounds his chest. When General Norman Schwarzkopf goes on stage, he likes to wear a stylish navy blue suit. He told Personal Selling Power that the suit gets him into the right mood for a powerful speech.

Mary Kay Ash greets her visitors with a warm smile. Once she begins to talk, you get the feeling that there is nothing else that counts in the world but you.

On the motivational speaking scene, Zig Ziglar is one of the sharpest dressers. He proudly wears a diamond-studded lapel pin that always catches the attention of his audience. For the interview with Personal Selling Power, W. Clement Stone showed up with his trademark razor-thin mustache, a hand-bound bowtie and a fat Monte Cristo cigar. It took him less than five seconds to create a powerful first impression.

You can easily distinguish those who are motivated from within from those who are not motivated just by looking at their appearance and their moves. The motivated move forward, onward and upward.

10. Helping Others

In the novel The Magnificent Obsession, Lloyd C. Douglas shared a wonderful secret that many superachievers have applied in their lives. The message of the book is to develop an obsession to help others. Douglas suggested sharing yourself without expecting a reward, payment or commendation. And above all else, keep your good turn a secret. If you do that, you will set in motion the powers of a universal law.

W. Clement Stone, who has contributed over $100 million to charitable causes, told Personal Selling Power, “When our attitude towards ourselves is big, and our attitude toward others is generous and merciful, we attract big and generous portions of success.”

Albert Einstein once told a reporter, “The life of a person has meaning if it enriches the lives of other people materially, intellectually and (or) morally.” Superachievers find motivation and meaning by helping others.

Part three

10 Techniques to Motivate Others

1. Be an active listener Good managers do more than pay attention. They genuinely care about people and never talk down to them. They ask their salespeople about their goals and dreams, their past achievements, their trials and triumphs. They listen with their hearts and minds. They respond with respect. They listen to the performer, so they can manage and direct the performance.

2. Make people feel important “If you want to persuade someone to your point of view, make him feel like somebody,” said Dale Carnegie. “Put yourself in his shoes. Don’t talk – listen to his problems and concerns. Show that you are genuinely interested.” Making other people feel important requires self-discipline. It means respecting the opinion of others, being fair and honest, taking pride in serving others and being kind, patient and likable.

3. Help people succeed “People go to work to succeed, not to fail,” says Norman Schwarzkopf. It is the manager’s job to understand people’s strengths and weaknesses. Managers who strive to find the good in their people will achieve far more than managers who only find fault. Management guru Peter Drucker once said that we can’t make people better by trying to eliminate their weaknesses, but we can help them perform better by building on their strengths.

4. Set high standards In high-performing organizations like Federal Express, Compaq, Motorola or GE, managers set high standards for their people. Salespeople want to know what is expected of them, how their performance is going to be measured and what rewards they can expect when they exceed the standard. For example, the Federal Express Manager’s Guide states: “You cannot manage what you cannot measure. You must identify those factors that are critical to your unit’s success and monitor performance against standards. As each plateau is reached, new goals must be established in our constant effort to improve service and lower costs.”

5. Recognize and reward outstanding achievement Buck Rodgers, former vice president of sales at IBM, tells how his managers were given a budget to recognize people on the spot who had demonstrated extraordinary effort. The program was called “Lightning Strikes.” The awards would ranged from a simple thank you to several thousand dollars for unusual achievements.

6. Help your salespeople compete and win The word “compete” means “striving together.” Competition can be a powerful and constructive force that can bring out the best in you and your sales team. A sales manager in a Fortune 500 company once used this compelling story to teach his sales team the meaning of competition: “Every morning on the plains of Africa, a gazelle wakes up. The gazelle knows that it must run faster than the fastest lion, or it will be killed by sundown. Every morning, on the same plain, a lion wakes up. The lion knows that it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve to death. So, it doesn’t matter if you are a lion or a gazelle, when the sun comes up, you’d better hit the ground running.”

7. Create a team effort Mary Lou Retton told Personal Selling Power: “I say that T-E-A-M is an acronym. T for together, E for everyone, A for achieves and M for more. A strong team helps everybody individually. A manager who sees a team member in a comfort zone, and sees resistance to getting out of that comfort zone, has an obligation to continue pushing for the good of both the team and the individual. It may take a year or two years. It may take a week or a couple of months. It will be different for each person. But help them come out of that comfort zone.”

Like good coaches, good managers can help their team members move beyond their limits as individuals and as a team.

8. Communicate clearly A good manager has the ability to accurately read the signals from the top and the bottom of the organization, understand the information better and give it a common meaning for everyone. Salespeople want to find meaning in the manager’s vision so they can use it as a guide for their actions. The clearer the vision, the clearer the communication, the clearer the chances for success.

9. Walk your talk Do what you say. Live up to your promises. Ethics begin by setting a good example. But don’t stop there. Put your guidelines for ethics in writing, cover all points during the initial sales training and set up an ethics review board to deal with ethical violations in your company.

Your salespeople need to know what’s right and what’s wrong. Practice integrity in all your dealings.

10. Do the little things well Buck Rodgers told Personal Selling Power: “You have to do a thousand things one percent better, not just do one thing a thousand percent better. It’s doing the little things well, being on time for meetings, returning phone calls, saying ‘thank you’ to people. It sounds like a cliché, but that is the reason one organization or one person is successful over someone else. Everybody knows what they ought to be doing, but the ones who practice daily excellence are the real difference makers.”

During the past 15 years, Personal Selling Power has collected personal thank-you notes, following a write-up in our magazine, from people like Malcolm Forbes, Zig Ziglar, Goodyear Chairman Stanley Gault, J. W. Marriott, Mary Kay Ash, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, Hugh Downs, George Bush and many others. If these VIPs can find the time to write a personal thank-you note, you can too. Managers who do the little things well know best what motivates others.