"Check yourself before you wreck yourself.” – sign from my safety job at the oil refinery

Catching up with a client he brings up his sales rep. It isn't the first time she's come up. I was there for the hiring, heard about her about six months later, and now her name comes up as another year passes. She's the only official business development person, but she brings years of selling experience to the table. New business before her arrival came from everyone and anyone, primarily from the owner/CEO.
The problem, he tells me, is most of the new business she brings in is still coming from the same employee/owner sources. Since she is involved in all business development activities, she works on everything from referrals to trade show leads. Most of the leads are still originating from him and his people. He feels like she isn't bringing in enough new business on her own.
When I ask what he was doing about it, he lists what sounds to me like motivation related actions.
- Discussing results vs expectations
- Coming up with a plan of action to improve results
- Changing the comp plan to reward finding new, new clients
I label these as motivation actions because I just happened to have finished writing a book about focusing on momentum vs. motivation! These actions suggest the answer to the production problem lies inside her, where we imagine motivation resides. I point this out and ask if he can think of any environmental factors contributing to her lack of production. He shrugs.
I suggest we take a look at her world and look for some indicators that show she's on track for finding the kind of new business he expects. From my point of view, she faces environmental challenges that have nothing to do with her motivation.
- She's never built a sales process. Her previous experience was working inside an existing team.
- She's not done this inside a small company where she is both the marketer and the sales person, plus it's a new industry.
- There is no road map. It's a highly technical business and dedicated business development people are rare.
- The staff is happy to hand off opportunities that need work, while they get back to their billable hours.
To her credit, she shows up every day, ready to work, so I argue she's motivated enough. I suggest they'll both be better served by focusing on building momentum, ignoring results for a while.
I describe them looking at one those "days without an accident" signs in workplaces, but the metric tracked is a useful new client prospecting activity. Each afternoon they take a minute and reflect on this question: did she do her best that day to make contact with a new prospect to the company? Yes or no. No digging into the details, just a simple "yep, tried my best," or "no, didn't get to it today." Track those days like the factory floor tracks accidents. How many days in a row can we get?
Focus on momentum.
Like most ideas, it's not an instant fix, but it's a start. Focusing on momentum and ignoring motivation, or changing the lens from motivation to momentum, will allow her to figure things out.
It's a process, not an event.
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