I've never cared for the term "motivational speaker." Sometimes people assign that title to me, and I always cringe a little bit when I hear or read it. Many so called motivational speakers I've seen are more entertainers than they are motivational. And I can't help think of Chris Farley's portrayal of motivational speaker Matt Foley on Saturday Night Live.
Often, motivational speaker is someone who gets the audience excited by leveraging latent energy in a roomful of people and channeling it toward cheering, laughing, and an eventual standing ovation. From what I've experienced, this type of motivation has a half-life of about 24 hours - the amount of "motivation" decreases by fifty percent every 24 hour period.
As I see it,if you're in sales and you need someone to stand in front of you to get your heart pumping faster so you can go out and do your job, you're probably in the wrong business. To me, motivation comes from knowledge, not entertainment (not that receiving knowledge can't be entertaining; you should hear my story about the eight foot tall salesperson). If you're a salesperson and you know what to do and how to do it, there's tremendous motivation in that. And there's incredible opportunity when we drink in knowledge which opens up doors to new heights of selling performance.
I'm a sales trainer. And if you must, you can call me a motivational speaker - I'll know you mean I provide motivation through education.And for the record, I don't live in a van down by the river.If you like this post (or don't!), please consider leaving a comment. Subscribe to our free sales tips newsletter to read more sales tips and commentary about selling and sales.
Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is mad about helping companies and individuals sell more.
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