Burritos, Laziness, and Salespeople
Are salespeople lazy? Sometimes. But I don’t think it is their fault.
As someone who has spent their adult life studying how decisions are made, I have come to learn that human beings are balls of chaotic emotions with a thin veneer of logic. Making decisions are like making burritos. You have to cook the rice and ground beef FIRST before wrapping it in the tortilla.
In this metaphor that came around near dinnertime the beef and rice are the emotions. Those need to be cooked first. The tortilla comes in at the end to keep the emotions together. In the metaphor the tortilla is logic.
This actually can be seen from a neurological standpoint. The queso-filled center of our brains is known as the limbic system. This is our reptilian brain where things like instincts and emotions are held. The outer layers of the brain, or the tortilla, is know as the neocortex.
The spine and central nervous system attach at the brainstem (Which don’t fit the burrito metaphor). This means every action the body takes has to be filtered through the Limbic system before action can be taken.
What does this matter in a blog post about lazy salespeople? The fact is managers usually understand this when it comes to customers, but they don’t extend the messy burrito analogy to their salespeople.
In a previous blog I talked about how motivation is not based on money, it is based on Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. Money is not great at motivating some people. Money is nothing more than a stepping stone to achieve whatever the real goal is. That overall goal usually falls into one of these three categories.
Just like how you cannot convince customers to buy without appealing to their emotions, you cannot appeal to salespeople without understanding their emotions. You need to appeal to either the fear of losing their job OR the hope of gaining autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Without understanding the emotional motivations of your salespeople, you cannot expect action to be taken. They are no different than customers.
Salespeople cannot be lazy if they are motivated. The two conditions cannot exist simultaneously. If you manage salespeople and don’t understand or know how to appeal to emotion, odds are you shouldn’t be training salespeople in the first place.