In this video, Evan Carmichael answers a viewer’s question about how to motivate staff to increase sales and improve performance. He argues that without fundamental leadership elements—clear vision, decisive decision‑making, a defined target customer, and a solid marketing plan—employees cannot be motivated. Citing surveys and studies, he explains that money, benefits, and perks are weak motivators; instead, people are driven by meaningful, appreciated work. Carmichael advises founders to spend time clarifying what their business stands for, using his own "Believe" movement as an example of a purpose‑driven mission that inspires volunteers and staff alike. With a clear purpose, decision‑making, marketing, and customer identification become easier, and the right salespeople can be attracted and motivated. He also notes that misaligned team members may need to be replaced, allowing self‑selecting candidates who share the mission to join. The video concludes with a call to subscribe and engage with the channel.
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How to motivate your staff. So I got a great question from one of my newsletter readers, Azzy, love you guys, who wrote in to say, thank you Evan, my question is how can I motivate my staff to do more sales and better work? Many times my staff tell me I'm slow in making decisions, I have no vision in my business, my customer's target is not clear, and I have no good marketing plan. If you have any great ideas, I'm looking forward to hearing from you. This is an interesting one. You know, Azzy, I don't know how you think your staff will be motivated when you're not making decisions quickly, you have no vision, you have no marketing plan, and you don't know who your customer is. That's pretty hard to get up and go to work for a guy who doesn't have those things in place, right? You don't have to have all the answers, but the big picture stuff, the founder CEO stuff, you better have in place. Otherwise, People aren't going to be motivated, right? You got to, you got to be a leader. If you look at what motivates employees and you can look at countless surveys and studies that have been done, what really motivates employees is not the money. It's not the benefits. It's not the free lunches. It's not the gym. It's not the daycare that you provide. It's the feeling like they're doing work that is meaningful and appreciated. That's what people really want. And if you look at the studies, you know, you give somebody a bonus, and maybe for the next week, you know, their productivity goes up when they're, they're hitting their milestones, and then it comes back down because it, it flatlines, right? And people are not motivated by the money. So people are motivated by working at a meaningful job, something that they feel like they're contributing to. And then they're going to work for somebody who has no vision, no business no, you know, they're slow to make decisions. How can they expect to stay motivated? What you really need to do, Azzy, is take a weekend, go somewhere else, and really figure out what this business means to you. Why is this so important? What do you stand for? What is this company all about? You got to figure that out to not only motivate your staff, motivate yourself. Like, how are you getting up and being motivated every day to go to work? You need to be feeling like you're doing something important. So my business is all about believe. I usually have this shirt on. I'm sick today, so I'm drinking my honey tea and whatever, black tea. But everybody on my team has to believe. They have to like believe. They have to feel like they want to come and work here. Where if you don't like believe, I'm not going to be able to motivate you. Right? Like, I can give you all the money in the world, it's not going to keep you motivated. Because the message is so strong and meaningful, I have people who write in to me constantly who are— they want to volunteer. They don't want to get paid anything. They just want to be part of the Believe Movement. They'll write in and they'll say, "Hey, if you ever need a writer, if you ever need a researcher, if you ever need a whatever it is that they offer, I'll do it for free. Just let me know. I want to be part of it." part of what you're doing. That's powerful. And the people on my team love what we're all about, and I don't need to motivate them because the work that we're doing is motivating, and everything that we put out is motivating and believing in entrepreneurs. And so that's a start, right? Like, what the heck do you stand for? And that's something you have to figure out personally and then bring that to your business. And when you have that clear sense of direction, then making decisions becomes easier. Then creating a marketing plan is a lot easier. Then knowing who your customers are is a lot easier. And with that clear vision in place, it then makes it so much easier to bring on the right salespeople and keep them motivated. And it may mean that your team has to change, right? Now that you know what you stand for, not everybody on the team may be on that same page. And if they're not motivated right now, then chances are you might need to get somebody new and that's okay. But the people who you'll attract will be ones who are much, are a much better fit for your company, right? If you lead with, here's what we stand for, here's what we're excited about, here's the change you're trying to create in the world, then people will self-select and you'll get much better candidates coming in. So that is how you keep your staff motivated. Believe. Those of you watching, you can subscribe to the channel if you like this video and want to see more. You can support me by clicking on the link in the description and leave a comment. Let me know what you think. I love your comments. They make my day every morning to wake up and check my comments. So thank you for that, and I'll see you soon.
