Velocity Selling T.V. Episode number 30 covers how to reward yourself and reinforce positive behaviour. The podcast features sales experts Bob Urichuck and Matthew Whyatt.
Monthly Goal Monitoring Chart
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VSTV Episode 30: Reinforcing Positive Behaviours
Matthew: Welcome back to Velocity Selling TV. I’m you’re host, Matthew Whyatt and we’ve got the founder of the company in Ottawa, Canada, Bob Urichuck. Welcome Bob.
Bob: Hi Matthew.
Matthew: Hey Bob, we’ve been talking about goals, we’ve been monitoring them, and really, what I want to talk about today is how to actually go ahead and create the behaviours and reward he behaviours. And so very much, like, I’ve had dogs that I’ve trained, and what I’ve found in actually making things stick for me personally, is giving myself a little reward. It doesn’t have to be food- although I love food, it doesn’t have to be food. Bob do you just want to talk us through that, how you created these disciplines and then reinforce them over time.
Bob: Ok, I guess- again this is all part of the goal log and all part of the activities on a goal. If you want to make a goal a reality, it’s got to be S.M.A.R.T, it’s got to have its dates, we’ve got to have our outcomes, what we see, what we hear, what we feel. We’ve got to look at obstacles, contingencies, skills and behaviours required, people and groups of people, we create an action plan that’s simple- step-by-step that breeds success. We monitor and measure our progress as we did in the last episode and we talk about the monthly monitor chart. And now, what we want to do today is talk about reward and there’s only two parts left to the overall goal log- it’s rewarding yourself for doing what you say you’re going to do. And this is a daily discipline within itself and the final one on commitment which we could do in the next episode. But right now, I want to take a look at rewards. We have to look at our whole day and I guess a great way to share this is: I often say to people, ‘Get up early. Give your first hour to yourself. Call it your power hour. Particularly if you’re a morning person.’ I used to get up at 7:00 in the morning and I changed it to getting up at 6:00 in the morning. I used to get up, have a cup of coffee. Well now, I dedicate that one hour to me and at the end of that hour, I use coffee as a reward. It becomes my first reward of the day. I’ve earned it now, I feel good about it because I’ve dedicated that time towards myself. And of course as I drink that cup of coffee, I’m grateful for the fact that I can have a cup of coffee when there’s millions of people around this world that can’t get a clean glass of water. And I count my blessings for the day. So it’s a great way to start your day. So when we take a look at rewards, and it’s not just for ourselves, it’s for others as well. We have a tendency to look at the things other people do wrong and we do that only because we don’t look at the good we do, we have a tendency to look at the things we do wrong as well. Would you agree?
Matthew: Absolutely.
Bob: It’s like recognition and praise is the strongest motivating factor in the workplace and yet, when I ask people, why don’t we work in an environment in praise and recognition, you know, people don’t get it. But when you apply our Rule of Three plus, and you question the answers, question the answers, you find the truth. Well what do we do to ourselves all day? We criticise ourselves. If we criticise ourselves, that’s an ineffective habit. So what we need to do is turn that around and start to recognise and praise ourselves. As we recognise and praise ourselves and feel better about ourselves, well then, we can see the good in others. So each us has to change so that we can use these rewards, not only for ourselves, but in the behaviours of others. And when I say rewards, it’s praise and recognition, and rewards. It’s the same sort of thing. So what we need to do is, if you pick a task and you put down your daily behaviours for a goal- here’s the things I’m gonna do, you do them. Define what your reward will be at the end of that. Now this works two ways: you do what you say you’re gonna do, you reward yourself. If you don’t do what you say you’re gonna do, you don’t reward yourself. For example, if I got up late this morning, I wouldn’t allow myself to have a coffee.
Matthew: Got it.
Bob: And it’s that kind of game you’ve got to play in your head and if you do that with the monthly monitor chart for the next twenty-five days, it will become a habit. So the idea is to help you start recognising the good that you do and start rewarding yourself for the appropriate behaviours that you demonstrate on a daily basis. Any behaviour that gets recognised or rewarded, gets repeated. Just make sure that they’re effective disciplines, effective behaviours, that you’re rewarding. Not ineffective ones.
Matthew: Yeah, fantastic. You know there’s a lot of parenting books and I’ve got two young boys, a seven year old and a six year old and it’s easy for us to say, you know ‘I’ve asked you to do this, and you haven’t done it’. And it’s actually really challenging. What’s interesting is I found it’s challenging to catch that good behaviour. And I talk about it often in sales meetings and business meetings, environments where we try to catch that good behaviour. I used to carry a some twenty dollar notes around in my pocket in my sales room and sales team, and whenever I heard a good spiel, or heard a good question, I would peel it off and just hand it to them. Look, I might have spent twenty, thirty, forty dollars a day, but that actually- that stuff got reinforced. So I’m bringing that across to my family life now- and I’m not giving my kids twenty dollar notes, but I’m trying to recognise. So this is all part of my journey and this is why I love doing these episodes with you Bob, it’s part, it’s education for everybody else, but really it’s a selfish thing. I get to have these things reinforced for me so I really appreciate it. Hopefully spmebody out there is watching, someone actually gets some value out of these as well.
Bob: Exactly. We’re hoping so, ‘cause that’s why we’re doing them, we want to make this a better world and particularly a better world for sales professionals.
Matthew: Alright Bob, well, thanks very much for that. Let’s find those rewards. Whether they are recognition, they are….What other ways would you suggest that one could be recognised?
Bob: Well recognising, it’s usually best to do it at the time when it happens. For example, in a lot of my seminars, I’ll ask a question and one person will answer, out of a hundred people.
Matthew: Yeah.
Bob: I’ll stop the whole seminar and say ‘Excuse me, thank you for your answer. But bear with me for a moment, everybody: Did this gentleman take a risk?’ And they’ll all say yes. Ok. Taking a risk, is that good behaviour? And again, they’ll say yes. And I said, ok, let’s recognise him and reward him and I give him a hand, and I give him a poster, a book, or something. Because what I’m trying to demonstrate here is, taking a risk is good behaviour and in sales we have to be able to take risks, we have to have courage, we have to have confidence, we have to stand up and believe in things. And when you have that step, well, you’re moving to your ten rating than ever before.
Matthew: Yeah, that’s perfect Bob. And that’s a great lesson for parents, and also CEO’s, managers, is find that way of a person displaying the right behaviours and then catching it as we go.
Bob: And be sincere, and do it right away and in front of others is even better.
Matthew: Perfect. Alright Bob, thanks very much. That was episode thirty, and we’ll come back next week with another one. See you later.
Bob: And congratulations on that, thirty is pretty good Matthew. Thank you.
Matthew: Pretty good – ok. Thanks Bob, bye-bye.
Matthew has been involved in the growth of many businesses across multiple industries including, health products, software development, IT consultancy, Real Estate and franchise sales with personal sales of over $100 million.
After all of this hard work Matthew took a year off with his wife and two children in Bali. After returning to Australia Matthew was ready to take on his next challenge, following his passion in Sales, and joined the Velocity Selling team as CEO.
