Part 1: How to motivate buyers as a sales rep

Why motivation in sales is where deals begin

In B2B sales, there are 3 big reasons why deals stall: 

1) Lack of motivation, 

2) You’re a poor fit

3) Fear of messing up

Of these reasons, the biggest and most dangerous is lack of motivation to act. Most often, you don’t lose to a competitor, you lose to the status quo and indecision. Sales Benchmark Index quoted 58% of SQLs were lost to the status quo.

The underlying reason for this is rarely product weakness, but the seller's failure to motivate someone to act as buyers doesn’t evaluate whether your solution is good, but whether the change is worth the disruption it creates.

This article is about the most powerful ability in sales: how to motivate prospects to become buyers.

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The real sales job: sell change, not solutions

All sales conversations are ultimately about change. As change introduces risk, effort and uncertainty, the prospect is likely to feel paralysed, resulting in the status quo winning.

An important rule here is that if the perceived cost of change outweighs the perceived benefit, even the strongest business case will end up stalling. 

That is why high-performing sales teams invest more time in building motivation early on, rather than defending their solution later.

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Motivation is created through contrast

Gap Selling, a sales book written by Keenan, teaches us that motivation does not come from describing pain alone nor does it come from painting an attractive future in isolation.

Motivation emerges in the tension between the two - the gap.

Buyers need to clearly see:

• The pain, cost and risk of staying where they are
• The gain, value and reward of moving forward

The contrast between the pain of the status quo and the gain of the desired state is what creates urgency. As you build urgency, you build momentum to change naturally and start winning more deals.

The three dimensions of value

So how do you create this gap? To make the contrast meaningful, you need to work across three levels of value:

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1. Business value

Revenue, efficiency and growth targets. These justify the decision.

2. Process value

How work gets done. This reduces friction and builds credibility.

3. Identity value

How the decision reflects on the individual. This drives action.

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Out of the three, identity value is the most important dimension. The motivational part of our brain responds best to emotions and this is why most sales reps leading with ROI and business impact will lose out on deals.

In the book The Chimp Paradox by Professor Steve Peters, it is stated that emotional messaging is understood 5x faster than logical reasoning as it speaks directly to our sense of self.

The best sellers lead and anchor messages in identity, because that is where decisions are actually made.
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Why identity drives action

In complex B2B environments, decisions are rarely neutral. Instead, they are tied to a personal sense of rewards such as passion, reputation, credibility and internal standing.

A buyer is not just thinking about outcomes, but also consequences:

• Does this align with my passion?
• Will this make me look good?
• Will this expose me to risk?
• Will this move my career forward?

When your message connects to identity, motivation becomes personal. This amplifies the motivational force, so you can move deals faster to the next pipeline stage.

In essence, you want to transform the prospect into champion by making them think:

1. Identity: This improves my reputation and aligns with my core values and beliefs.
2. Process: This will make my job easier.
3. Business: This will benefit our company.

Bringing motivation into practice

Ultimately, creating motivation is about using the 3 dimensions of value to contrast the current state (pain) vs the desired state (gain).

The most important is to focus on the identity value to build a champion as our brain responds 5x stronger to emotions rather than logic. You must articulate:

• Where they are today
• Where they want to be
• What is at stake if nothing changes

Being able to motivate is especially important in cold calls where you must motivate a change without initial credibility. This is the foundation of VAEKST Outbound Sales offering and how we build high-performing B2B sales teams. Learn more here.