Modern Selling: Six Ways to Stay Motivated

There is an urban legend about two salespeople sent to a developing country to sell shoes. After a few days, the first called the office and asked to come home: "This is a terrible market. No one here wears shoes."

About a week later, salesperson two sends an urgent email: "This market is a huge opportunity. Everyone needs shoes. Please ship more." After a year, salesperson two had made enough commission to retire early.

It's amazing how attitude can be the difference between extreme success and failure in sales. These two salespeople may have had identical capabilities – but because of one person's attitude, success became reality.

It has always been hard to stay motivated in sales, but today it feels like competing against an invisible opponent. Customers don't communicate until they need something. Prospects don't accept invitations to meet new vendors. The tools are changing week to week. What used to be a profession built on interpersonal connection and centuries of proven behavior is now faceless and shifting between lunch and happy hour. How are we supposed to stay motivated?

Here are six ideas for today's sales professional.

1. Own your mornings. Yes, another morning routine suggestion – and if you followed every one of them, you'd still be doing it at midnight. But there is real merit in a simple, consistent routine that gets you from bed to productivity before most people are awake. Keep it short enough that you can move on with your day at a reasonable hour.

2. Shift your expectations. Not for your sales numbers – for the day-to-day feedback you get from accounts. Nobody may reply to your email or schedule a meeting to discuss next year's access control project, but that's not a reflection of you. They're not talking to anyone. Focus your expectations on your activity, not the outcomes.

3. Develop new business every single week. Nothing kills motivation faster than a thin pipeline, and nothing makes losses sting less than a full one. A strong pipeline creates a motivated salesperson.

4. Remind yourself how much complacency is out there. The dominant byproduct of sales culture over the past 20 years is reactionary complacency – not laziness, but a habitual response to leads and inbound requests, with little urgency beyond that. True proactive competitors are rare. A few months of disciplined outreach can move you from the bottom of a market to the top.

5. Read and listen to motivational content. Old school, yes – but as Zig Ziglar said: "Motivation is temporary, but so is bathing, and that's why we recommend doing both every day."

6. Use a mantra. Mine is "Keep moving forward" – borrowed from the kids' movie Meet the Robinsons – and it works every time. When the day goes sideways, those three words are enough to reset. From years of experience – not just mine, but in the stories of countless others – persistence usually wins.