What’s Missing from Hyper-Personalisation? You Are.

Hyper-Personalisation Begins with the Person

In sales, the concept of personalising one’s approach is not new. We've long known that doing your homework—understanding your prospect, their business, their challenges—is crucial. But in today’s environment of hyper-personalisation, that’s no longer enough.

To truly connect in a hyper-personalised way, the salesperson must also bring themselves into the equation. Not just their knowledge or expertise—but their personal reasons for wanting to do business with the other person or company.

This shift is subtle but significant. It moves beyond the corporate rationale—“Our solution fits your needs”—and into something much more authentic: Why do I, as an individual, want to work with you?

That answer can vary widely. It might be the thrill of a new challenge, the opportunity to grow, the excitement of tackling something you’ve not encountered before. The key is honesty. When you’re clear on your own motivation, it naturally translates into genuine enthusiasm—an energy that the other person will feel.

This changes the nature of the conversation. The questions you ask are no longer generic or formulaic. They become deeply specific, driven by sincere curiosity and personal interest. Your research is not just a box to tick—it becomes part of a thought process where you’ve already made the internal connection: This is why I care.

Helping salespeople uncover and articulate this internal motivation is a powerful part of modern sales training. And it’s something that external trainers are particularly well placed to support. Because the process is intimate. It requires reflection. It touches on the very reasons people choose to do what they do.

When we facilitate this kind of introspection, we’re not just creating more effective salespeople—we’re creating more engaged, more fulfilled professionals. And in a world of increasing automation and impersonal outreach, that kind of authenticity is the real differentiator.

Why Genuine Enthusiasm Is So Rare in Sales—And What Dreaming Has to Do With It?

If connecting with others in a hyper-personalised way requires us to first connect with ourselves, then we must ask: why is that so difficult?

From a psychological perspective, the answer lies in our complex relationship with motivation, authenticity, and something far more fragile than we might like to admit—our capacity to dream.

We often think of motivation as a force that should naturally arise when circumstances are right. But motivation isn’t something we find—it’s something we cultivate. And that requires us to go inward, to explore what truly matters to us. That’s where many hesitate.

Much like in vision development, one of the hardest steps is what we might call utopian thinking: allowing ourselves to imagine an ideal future, unconstrained by current limitations. It’s often dismissed as naïve or unrealistic—but it’s essential for forming any authentic sense of direction. The difficulty isn’t intellectual. It’s emotional.

As children, we dream instinctively. Our imagination is expansive. Possibility is a default state. But as adults, we learn restraint. We internalise expectations. We become self-monitoring, cautious, realistic. According to Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan), intrinsic motivation flourishes under conditions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Yet these are often the very conditions under threat in adult life. Even in sales roles, professional environments often reward compliance over curiosity, outcomes over introspection.

This reluctance to look inward echoes what psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott described as the false self—a protective persona built to meet external demands, often at the expense of the authentic self. In professional settings, especially in sales, people may suppress their real interests and motivations in favour of what seems acceptable or expected.

The cultural pressure to “dream big” only adds to the difficulty. It creates a performative standard—not only must you have a dream, it must be grand. This hierarchy of dreaming invalidates smaller, personal aspirations. And therein lies the psychological trap: if your dream doesn’t feel big enough, it may not feel legitimate. People start to question whether their inner desires are “worthy”—and in doing so, they begin to silence them.

Another dynamic at play is what psychologists call cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957). When the dream you hold feels too far from your current reality, the resulting discomfort leads the mind to resolve the gap—by shrinking the dream or suppressing it altogether. It feels safer not to want something too much, especially if failure is a possibility.

And failure, of course, is the quiet fear behind so much of adult behaviour. Dreaming makes us vulnerable. To name what we truly want is to expose the risk of not achieving it. The emotional cost feels too high. So we retreat into auto-mode—functional, professional, detached.

That detachment is what often drains the energy from sales. When the heart’s not in it, the voice still speaks, but it doesn’t resonate. The questions get asked, but they don’t spark. There’s motion—but no momentum.

That’s why working on intrinsic motivation isn’t a nice-to-have in sales training—it’s essential. And it begins with giving people permission to explore what they really want, without judgement. Not what they should want. Not what the company wants for them. Their own reasons.

This kind of vision work is delicate. It requires safety. It takes time. But it pays off. Because when someone finds a personal reason to care, their energy becomes contagious. Their curiosity is real. And their connection with the client is no longer just strategic—it’s human.