How Money as a Motivator Did Not Work for Me for 17 Years, Until I Discovered Why
Why Money as a Motivator Did Not Work for Me
For seventeen years, money as a motivator did not work for me the way everyone told me it should. I chased targets, hit numbers, and still felt hollow at the finish line. It took me far too long to understand why, and the answer connects closely to why every sales leader needs a genuine point of view rather than someone else’s definition of success.
Working in a highly competitive, smash your numbers, ‘get the deal at any cost, KPI driven’ sales environment and not being driven by money made me feel there was something amiss with my motivation levels because I didn’t seem to think the same way as my colleagues – or so I thought!
Little did I know back then that money is one of the lowest motivating factors of all.
Now don’t get me wrong… I am not down on money-making ventures. Far from it! And as a salesperson, if you are doing a great job, taking action, adding value and building bridges with your clients, then you will attract more money – a simple case of cause and effect.
But when it comes to the compensation plan, and you’re wondering why your team aren’t overachieving, especially when you are dangling dollars, then I’d encourage you to dig a little deeper into YOUR beliefs around money being a motivator, and into what your team’s values around money are. Because often, money is not the answer to motivation! Knowing what that money will give people is the answer! After all the very word Motivation means A Motive for Action.
My husband and I had not long relocated to Melbourne and were moving into our new home, and it was a perfect time to replenish all our linen for the bedrooms and bathrooms. It was going to cost me around $5000 to completely kit out those rooms with my favourite brands, and a new sales competition was being launched.
The sales managers were smart. They could have dangled a $5000 cash prize, but they chose to have each of us submit something we would buy with that $5000. Whilst my colleagues were choosing watches, phones and holidays, I submitted, you guessed it… ‘linen’. This small twist is a perfect example of why money as a motivator did not work as well as a prize tied to something personally meaningful.
And I won!
But it wasn’t until I began delving into the brain, our behaviour and the correlation of both in the context of business growth did I start to see the gaps many sales managers don’t bridge.
If only more managers realise that they can get more out of people, or rather help their people get more out of themselves, once they understand what makes people tick at an individual level, then cater to those motivations, eg recognition, belonging and autonomy, instead of making huge assumptions and just dangling the almighty dollar. This is exactly why money as a motivator did not work as a blanket strategy across an entire sales team.
When the finger is pointed because opportunities have been lost, this is just one example where the sales manager must point the finger back on themselves. Start doing more research, discovery, and qualification within their team–the human pipeline!
And in case you were wondering, good linen needs to go on good mattresses- so reach out to another one of my amazing clients TEMPUR Australia and New Zealand!
If you want to DM me for more on how to get the most from your sales team, then I look forward to speaking with you.
Once I understood why money as a motivator did not work for me, everything else about how I led and sold finally started to make sense.
I’m Bernadette – founder of the Decision-Led Revenue™ Operating System and The Revenue Leader of Influence™, where I work with CEOs and sales leaders to build a sales team they can rely on to think, make the call, tell the truth about pipeline and own the result.
If any of this resonated – or if you’re staring at a revenue problem that feels like it should have been solved by now – I’d love a conversation.
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