Is Your Sales Team Missing This Key Ingredient?

If you have tried everything to get your sales team into shape, yet with limited success, then maybe your sales reps are missing a critical ingredient.

Sales success has a direct relationship to this essential element . . . Ambition.

Ambition drives the sales train. Here is a little poem to sum it up:

It can’t be taught,
It can’t be bought.
It can’t be steered,
Nor engineered.
Ambition is either there . . . or it is not.

So, what is this thing we call, Ambition? It is often described as “motivation.” Yet, motivation can be created in two ways – internally (intrinsic) or externally (extrinsic).

People who “drink the Kool-Aid” are externally motivated. Someone or something externally drives their motivation. In sales, a talented Sales Manager may inspire their sales team to glorious results, but what happens if the Sales Manager leaves? The external inspiration is gone. If your sales reps are not internally driven, their sales performance may suffer without someone pushing them up the ladder of success.

Sales professionals who are internally motivated (or self-motivated) do not need external factors to stay motivated. They create their own success despite the obstacles and struggles they may face. Ambition is defined as the desire and determination to achieve success. People who are intrinsically motivated drive themselves to success. They know what they want to achieve, believe they can do it, set appropriate goals, and then execute an action plan to deliver their desired results.

Before hiring a new sales professional, measure their Ambition. Sales assessments measure internal motivation with a fair amount of reliability. Granted, there are many other variables to sales success, but Ambition tops the list of “must-haves.” People who are self-motivated and love to excel have a significantly higher probability of sales success.

Remember, you can’t teach, buy, steer, or engineer Ambition. Your sales reps either have it, or they don’t.

Learn more on how to attract, identify and hire sales professionals with high Ambition.