Be careful if you’re looking for someone else to motivate you.  There’s a big difference between motivation and inspiration.  Someone else can inspire you to do great things but when they’re gone you’re the one who has to have the internal motivation to continue.  Tony Robins is a master at inspiration.  He gets people to do things they’ve never dreamed possible.  The way he does it is by getting you all excited, putting a bunch of people around you to cheer you on and making you believe you can do something you’ve never done before like walk across a set of hot coals – pure inspiration.  It’s an amazing thing to watch but the problem is when you go home and get back to your day to day life and face those coals without Tony and a group of people there to cheer you on its tough to make that walk if you don’t have the internal motivation to do so.

Sales is one of those professions where we have to have the internal motivation to keep going.  It’s one of the toughest and least forgiving professions in the world.  However, if you have the motivation and drive to succeed it’s also the greatest profession in the world.  As a sales professional you should always be focused on continuous improvement and finding new ways every day to get better, regardless of what your manager or anyone else is telling you to do.  A way I have found to keep myself focused on this is by subscribing to the “Rule of 1%.”  This is a rule highlighted in the book “Raving Fans” by Ken Blanchard.  It says to set the bar at a high but attainable level and then once you reach that bar just focus on doing 1% better every day.  This is a simple concept and one that I have found to be very effective.  Print out a sign that says “1% EVERY DAY” and put it up in your cube.  If you focus on this for 50 days you’ll be 50% better than you are today.  Make 2010 a great one!

By the way, if you want some “motivation” here you go…..