Curt Schilling’s Contract Has Implications for the Sales Force

If you follow baseball you probably heard that Curt Schilling’s new contract for next year includes $2 million for meeting weight incentives.  For $2 million even I could be motivated to lose 20 pounds! And therein lies the deeper message.

Everyone can be motivated to do things they don’t like to do and for many salespeople, selling includes a lot of the little things that make many of them uncomfortable, like:

• cold calls
• asking for money
• closing
• asking tough questions
• confronting the brutal facts
• selling value instead of price
• qualifying thoroughly

There are many, many more examples I could add to the list but in the interest of my time I won’t.  The point is, that all of your salespeople, would do those things for $2 million.  The question is, if they’ll do it for $2 million, they’ll do it, but what will it take?  Learn the answer to that and you have the key to motivating your salespeople to do what they don’t like to do and that’s the difference between over achievers and everyone else.