Motivation: Thinking out of the Box
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Thu, Aug 21, 2008 @ 06:29 PM
Barely a week goes by that I don't get asked how to get inside sales people motivated. This is a toughie, because we're all motivated by different things, some of them extrinsic (money), others intrinsic (a desire to succeed.) But one motivational challenge I myself dealt with was during the time I drove a taxi cab to put myself through college. My mom and dad were good people, but didn't have the money to put me through college. I wanted to go to college in Boston, got a school grant, and moved to Boston. I went to school full time, but needed to work my way through school. I got a job driving for Town Taxi. It wasn't easy at first, because the veteran drivers seemingly knew all the good spots. But I was extremely motivated to finish school, and failure wasn't an option. I simply had to develop a plan for success.
I actually developed two plans, and cab driving soon became quite successful for me. Let me tell you about the first one. I'd pick up a lot of out of town businesspeople from out of town, generally at hotels or the airport. Most of them were fascinated by Boston. I began offering personalized tours for two or three hours, perfect for businesspeople on a schedule. Of course, I'd have to handle sales objections and use closing skills. I was motivated not just by the money, but by the sheer joy of driving fascinating people to places they loved. We all had fun.
The other idea came when I was driving down Blue Hill Avenue in Roxbury one Saturday morning. In those days, most white drivers didn't work the African-American areas of town. I did, though, and had a drop off in Roxbury one morning. On Blue Hill Avenue that day, there were dozens of moms lined up with their weekend shopping, all standing on the sidewalk, and no cabs to take them home! They rarely were going more than 5 blocks or so, always tipped a quarter, and the flag dropped with every pick up, so just through churn, I made a small fortune that day, working a route that many others wouldn't touch. And these were the most thoughtful, polite, and gracious customers a taxi driver could hope for. Every Saturday became my Roxbury day, and my motivation came from having loads of great conversations with wonderful people. They were very happy that I was there, and I was honored to be their driver, a real win-win. Many other drivers --- had they worked in Roxbury --- would have refused these short rides, looking for a bigger fare. But I had figured out a way to make big money from volume, and had developed a sales lead generation program that really worked! Those moms on Blue Hill made my day a lot of fun. True, I didn't have to handle sales objections. But I did have the satisfaction of providing good service to people who needed it. 25 cents wasn't much of a tip, but it was what they had, and they were proud to tip me. And this later served me well when I made Sales my profession. I remembered the value of not being afraid to take a small profit for doing great work. The appreciation of your customers is a great motivator!
Truthfully, it was during my days with Town Taxi in Boston that I learned to hustle for work, sell, and handle objections. The motivational factors for me in those days weren't too hard to figure out, but it did require thinking out of the box, and thinking of others. Putting smiles on their faces was a reward all in itself, and maybe that's a good lesson for inside sales people, too. Make your customers totally happy with you and what you're offering, and you may have the motivation problem licked.