I need a motivational book on priorities.

My sister has asked me for help with the new job I just got her at my company. She is now a sales rep, with an outside territory.

She is currently going through a divorce and has a 3 year old daughter.

Her problem is, that she is so consumed with all the personal problems she is having, that it is affecting her job.

She has a salary right now but it goes to straight commission in two months.

The reason for the inital salary is that she must build her client base up, as they typically reorder our product (bulk maintenance supplies) every month.

If she does not build up enough clients, when the time comes for commssion only to begin, then she will have trouble making enough money. Our boss is not very hands-on....she will basically not say much about the fact that my sister is not getting very many accounts. In other words, my boss will let her ride out the 3 months salary then go on commission, without giving my sister much advice or input.

I am helping my sister since our boss is not avaliable much of the time, and this is fine for me but for a new person starting out it is not. In this business you need someone to help you the first few months or else you will not make it in the business.

I have been with this company 6 years and am successful and know how this all works. I have seen too many people quit because they did not work hard enough during the first 3 months to build enough clients.

She only needs to work 35-40 hours a week, to do what it takes for success. So it's not like she's having to work overtime.

I did give her three money management and sales books a while back which she did read and took the advice.

Now I need a book that will talk about how important it is to set priorities while working. Something that talks about how work must be your priority while you are there, that if you let personal issues get in the way, you are ultimately hurting yourself and your family (less money).

I don't have kids myself. It would be good if the book could talk about people with kids, maybe even single moms.

Her daughter is in preschool during the day while she works. The problem is, my sister sometimes takes off half a day here and there to go do personal things, unrelated to work. Since she's in outside sales, her boss does not know what she's doing when she's supposed to be working.

My sister says she is trying hard and I believe she thinks she is. However I don't think she realizes the importance of working a full day, EVERY DAY, not just 4 days a week.

It will make a HUGE difference to her career if she does not work the full 7-8 hours a day she needs to in the beginning.

So does anyone know of a book that talks about how important it is to really work, that it will really make a difference to someone like her with a kid? And that even though she has a lot on her plate, with her personal problems, she needs to set all that aside during working hours and focus on her job!!!

I really want my niece to have a nice life, and my sister is in so much debt right now, the dad is not very helpful, and it is difficult for my sister to provide many extras for her daughter. If my sister has success in her job, it will make a huge difference in my niece's life.

I reccomend reading "Lets get real about money" by Eric Tyson

thank you I will check it out!

What about this for motivation?
Tell her in 3 months she will not be able to feed her kids if she doesn't do something now. A book will not change her nature. Get ready for her to ask for loans.


saladdin

You are totally right! She is doing something now, but my fear is her taking off here and there is going to cause big problems.

She is in denial somewhat but it's weird how one day she'll act responsible and the next she'll be in denial again. This is an improvement from before because it used to be she was ALWAYS in denial and unwilling to change at all. She is 75% better with her attitude but it needs to be more than 75%.

She will never get a loan from me because for one thing I have my own bills and for another thing I don't believe in giving loans. I don't have money to give her either.

She already has to drive a car cosigned my mom. She pays the loan every month back to my mother. She has to have the car for work and to take her kid to school every day.

I can not believe my mom cosigned for her, I think that is horrible. But mom is thinking oh poor thing with a kid, so she "helped" her by taking out the car loan for her when her other car died.

My sister could have gotten a loan with a REALLY high interest rate on her own. But mom bailed her out. Then two months later someone hit my sister's car and my mom ended up fronting $4000 to get the car back. The insurance did pay my mom thank god. My mother and her husband aren't rich either, though she doesn't have debt, has the house paid off, and is responsible.

I would be so embarassed to have to get my mother to cosign a loan for me. My sister is 31 too, not a baby. If she were in college well then maybe I would be okay with it.

It's not my place to say anything so I don't. Not about the car.

Anyhow, my sister asked me for help and advice about work, and the job, and money management in general since I am doing well. I'm not perfect by any means when it comes to money but in comparason I am doing a lot better, and that is why she asked me.

My mother is the type that says stay married because you have a child, at all costs. Which is what my mother did despite fighting daily with my father, who she divorced once we were just about grown. She waited to get divorced for the kids, when in reality it was an awful way to live, for us kids, with all the turmoil caused by seeing all the arguing and hatefullness every day.

My sister did try talking to her but my mother is so in denial and just says work it out. My mother even told my sister to get a "normal" job which means somewhere making $30,000 a year like she does. And easy job is what my mother meant. Well that will not pay the bills of a single mother very easily, not in this area. It will get you by but just barely. And my mother had an advantage my sister does not have: my mother got a divorce settlement which allowed her and my mother's now husband to buy a house with cash. My mother can work a $30,000 job, and live a comfortable lifestyle. Not extravagant, but combined with her husband's modest income and a paid off house it's a good situation.

My sister on the other hand has a lazy soon to be ex husband who works sporadically (he is working now) and will probably never be financially successful. Besides, my sister is reasonablly smart and has the capability to go out and be making $75,000 a year within 2-3 years time, if she just puts in a standard 40 hr workweek where she works.

Anyhow thanks for all your advice.

She must not find money a big motivator. Some people would go wild at the opportunity to set their own salary via comissions. Others prefer the predictibility of a fixed paycheck.
She asked how you got where you are- and you told her. By working a full week and putting a lot of effort into it. The rest is pretty much up to her.

Well I asked her before she started the job, are you sure you really want to do this? I also gave her some links to local job fairs and told her about some other jobs I knew were hiring. She said no she wanted to work at my company.

She actually did work there 5 yrs before, in the office doing inside sales with me. She quit after a few months. This was before she was married or had a kid. The reason she quit before was it was about an hr long drive each way to and from work, she said. Also she does not like working in an office.

So now she does outside sales and works closer to home most of the time. But she still drives a lot. I think the reason she wants to work outside sales is so she can have freedom. In other words, her boss rarely keeps tabs on her, since she's not in the office.

This could backfire though, she needs to have discipline to make this work.

Anyhow, I did try to tell her not to take the job because it is very hard starting out. She insisted she was money motivated now, that she had changed.

I honestly think she is money motivated, but at the same time she is in some denial about what it takes to make money. If it were just so easy then everyone would do it.

I think motivation has to come from within, and can't be had from reading a book ....

just my 2 cents.....

Sounds like she was excited not motivated. People often get them confused.
Excitement wears off when the "newness" is gone. Motivation comes after discipline.
It takes real discipline to shut off your personal life when there's that much drama in it and concentrate on your job. Maybe, if she's going to read a book, it should be about that.

I hope she'll find her way, you're a good sister.

You can lead a horse to water...

That is the saying around my office....whenever there are new people who end up quitting because they aren't doing their job correctly and thus unable to make much money.

I think it is excitement about getting out of her bad marriage, more than anything. The job is a means for her do be able to do that, eventually.

The thing is, if she works this job a year or two it gets easier, as her client base is built up. So if she can keep up the excitement, or motivation, for a year, she will likely be reasonably successful.

Anyway I'm hoping for the best, I've done all I can!

OP, to answer your original question: I found Brian Tracy's _Eat That Frog_ helpful when I was in a situation similar to your sister's and needed the "eye opener" to get out of being overwhelmed by everything.

Yes!! That is EXACTLY what I needed!!! I read the reviews and it fits her personality, what she needs exactly. I am ordering it right now!!

I had several jobs I was excited about at first, but not motivated after I settled in. I got Dan Miller's 48 Days to the Work you Love. Thru that I found out that I'm better off making my kids and family my priority right now -- it simply isn't financially feasible for me to work outside the home (low salary, high cost of daycare), though I can do a few things from home that bring in a buck or two now and then. But I'm *content* and helping us financially and doing what's best for my family right now. Plus, I've got goals for the future (when kids are all in school) and definite plans of how to get there. It changed my way of thinking about a j-o-b and put me on the right track.

Thanks for posting that, I will have to check out Dan Miller's book. I would love to work from home full-time too but I almost feel like it's necessary to experience the office setting first and have steady, guaranteed income coming in first before I can do any type of small, home-based business venture. I hope this book can help out my situation as much as it has for you.