You can only affect your sales team’s sales performance in two dimensions as a sales manager or director: their skill set (what they are capable of doing), and their motivation (how repeatedly or passionately they perform their tasks).
The process of increasing your team’s skill set is largely impartial. You can identify what needs to be improved and take appropriate action by assessing current performance metrics and comparing them to a successful end state.
Even the most effective and motivated members of your sales team occasionally need some extra motivation. Instead of being seen as a sign of weakness, the need for encouragement should be seen as a necessary factor since performing the same task repeatedly can lead to burnout. People are looking for jobs in environments where employee burnout is avoided at all costs.
But getting motivated is much harder. In addition to the numerous external factors that influence motivation, each individual also requires a unique set of incentives and motivational strategies.
We at Sloovi have successfully used the following tactics to motivate our sales team and raise morale throughout our many years as sales leaders in the industry.
We’ll discuss what motivates your team in this article, how to establish trust as a sales manager, and how to give sales reps the tools they need to succeed. No sales competition, gamification, or even a sales CRM improvement by itself can produce a motivated sales unit.
Your sales talent will pay attention once you start fusing the appropriate sales activities with teamwork, sound management, and a coaching style of sales leadership.
Before we delve deeper into this, we will first discuss the meaning and importance of having a motivated sales team, why it matters, and why top employers like Google and Meta invest millions of dollars into sales team motivation every year.
What is sales team motivation?
Sales team motivation in the workplace entails making a conscious effort to maintain team engagement, focus, and self-assurance in their capacity to connect with customers. They serve as the company’s front-line brand ambassadors, and employee morale is correlated with organizational morale.
Everyone is driven by different things, so it is crucial to comprehend the essence of your team. Understanding the whole person and learning the reasons and motives behind each one is necessary for motivating others.
Benefits of having a motivated sales team
The answer is straightforward: sales teams that are motivated perform better, and sales reps who are happy with their compensation are less likely to leave their current position or work lazily. According to a recent Gallup Poll, sales reps outperform teams by an average of 20% in sales.
Sales goal attainment can be hindered by unmotivated, disengaged sales teams, which frequently go hand in hand with subpar overall performance.
Workplace motivation, in particular for sales reps, aims to improve their performance on the sales floor, encouraging them to generally work harder and smarter. This enables organizations to finish tasks quickly, correctly, and within budget all of which have a positive effect on the organization’s bottom line.
What motivates your sales team to do more?
People are unique, and this includes what matters to them and what drives them. Not all salespeople will fancy rewards like healthy food during lunch break and public or private praise But it’s fair to say that everyone wants to be acknowledged for their work when it comes to it (and a little extra money never hurts things, either).
Here are four major sales motivational tactics to help motivate your sales team:
Wanting to have control over their income, many professionals enter the sales industry. It’s common for commission-based jobs to have no upper salary cap. The high earning potential of sales draws people who are driven by money. You can add the SPIF (sales performance incentive fund) to your compensation plan.
Based on their own efforts, successful sales professionals are recognized and promoted. A new rising star can stand out from the crowd with a strong showing or an original strategy.
An exciting feeling comes from seeing your name at the top of the leaderboard. It’s even better in sales because each victory is accompanied by a financial reward. The motivation of the top salespeople is frequently recognition and a desire to push themselves to their personal best.
Selling isn’t always about making money. Although selling skills can frequently be applied across industries, most salespeople find it difficult to become enthusiastic about a product they don’t firmly believe in. However, if your sales team shares your customers’ passion for the company’s mission and believes in it, they will do so. Check out some sales motivational quotes to encourage your sales team.
How to motivate sales team: 10 methods that worked for Sloovi
How then can these motivators contribute to helping motivate your sales team into action?
Create rewards and base your leadership decisions on the four areas you are aware are most important to motivate salespeople.
Here are 10 ways to motivate your sales team.
1. Build trust in the sales manager
One of the most crucial strategies for inspiring your sales team is to build trust. If you can do this well, it will serve as a solid base for all of your other team-motivation strategies.
However, why is trust so important? Employee productivity, sales team cohesiveness, and career satisfaction will all rise if they have faith in the leadership of the sales managers. Lack of trust in the sales leadership will result in lower engagement, a higher rate of sales rep turnover, and a decline in the performance of the sales team as a whole.
Building trust can have such a positive effect on the motivation of the sales team because we all know that when we have an inspiring leader with whom we have faith, we are more likely to be committed to our work.
In order to better motivate your sales team, start establishing more trust with them by implementing the following strategies:
Do what you say you’ll do and when you say you’ll do it.
- spend time with your team
Go beyond the occasional sales meeting to get to know each member of the team and what is important to them. Periodic ice-breakers work like magic.
Avoid becoming cynical or passive-aggressive by maintaining a positive frame of mind.
Allow your staff to offer suggestions for how you can improve; and, when necessary, take corrective action in response to their constructive criticism.
Instead of creating the sales strategy all by yourself, consult your staff, and then incorporate their top suggestions into the strategy.
Take action and do everything within your power to fulfill your employees’ needs.
2. Improve your leadership approach
Not every circumstance necessitates the same management approach. You should be a little more diplomatic if you’re handling a conflict at work.
However, you’ll need to be more of a coach if you have a worker who is performing poorly. You should keep in mind that lack of motivation can arise from a variety of sources, so there is no universal cure.
Think about the demands on your team and the current tasks they have.
How can they be inspired by democratic leadership, transactional leadership, or servant leadership? You can also request their opinions.
Perhaps they have needs that you aren’t currently meeting, and with a little tweaking, you could inspire them in different ways.
3. Provide opportunities for development
Ask your sales representatives about their accomplishments, future plans, and upcoming promotions. Create plans based on performance and preferences.
But don’t just focus on providing job opportunities. Give your reps the chance to develop their careers in this demanding industry while truly thriving as whole people.
The shifting sales environment is giving many sales representatives trouble. Traditional sales investments prioritize ad hoc training and productivity tools over developing the competencies and attitudes that have the greatest impact on performance.
BetterUp believes that helping sales executives develop the mindsets and behaviors necessary to thrive and inspire will enable them to coach and inspire their teams to achieve both personal and professional success. Check out the guide about sales opportunities.
4. Provide financial inducements
Financial incentives may be the best option if you’re looking for an easy way to increase the motivation of your sales team.
These might consist of spot bonuses, competitions, or increased commissions. For top performers, compensation plans might even be completely changed. Rewards are a fantastic way to keep your team motivated during times of low morale.
Giving your team a financial incentive is a great way to have an immediate impact, but don’t assume that’s the only thing they care about. Money still matters, but it isn’t the only thing that matters.
If we said otherwise, we’d be lying.
People have turned down enormous payoffs because they didn’t feel valued or appreciated in the ways that mattered to them.
5. Provide opportunities for development
Ask your sales reps about their accomplishments, key sales activities, future plans, and upcoming promotions. Create plans based on performance and preferences. But don’t just focus on providing job opportunities. Give your reps the chance to develop their careers in this demanding industry while truly thriving as whole people.
The shifting sales environment is giving many sales reps trouble. Traditional sales investments prioritize ad-hoc training and productivity tools over developing the competencies and attitudes that have the greatest impact on performance.
BetterUp believes that helping sales leaders develop the mindsets and behaviors necessary to thrive and inspire will enable them to coach and inspire their sales teams to achieve both personal and professional success.
As a sales team leader, you can use team-wide sales contests to foster healthy competition and build the necessary skills amongst your sales reps. The sales contest can also serve as a form of sales training that boost motivation and employee happiness.
6. Set monthly goals and recognize success when they are achieved
It is in your best interest to assist your whole team in creating monthly goals if you work closely with them every day. You should encourage them to step outside their comfort zones because these goals may be ambitious.
Together, you can ensure that their sales goals are reasonable though. Try to recall when specific turning points are so you can celebrate them along the way after they’ve set goals.
Celebrate when a tangible goal is achieved, but don’t forget to celebrate small wins as well. Because not every day in sales ends with a significant close, this is crucial. It’s simple to become preoccupied with the bottom line.
7. Put your sales talent in charge
Putting your salespeople in the driver’s seat can be extremely motivating.
According to Bhavin Parikh, in a conversation with Fast Company, the sense of ownership and primary responsibility can actually lead to qualitative improvements which will ultimately increase the level of daily success the team achieves.
Putting the team in charge can also help encourage transparency and boost sales motivation.
But how do you, as a sales leader, instill a sense of ownership in your sales organization?
Simple!
- Give your different salespeople a short-term destination and let them choose their own route to get there.
- Have fewer meetings except when an important project arises.
- Don’t always ask for direct reports on a new project
- Allow your sales team members to grow and choose their own work style, for instance, you could give your team the short-term objective of bringing in 2 new customers every day and let them handle bringing in the different prospects however suits them best.
- Encourage the team to set personal goals
- Have more structured meetings for knowledge sharing
Sales managers could use the same strategy to encourage them to fulfill their sales quotas to the company and its market share.
8. Invest in making your team better
In addition to ensuring that the team sells enough and fills up the sales funnel, it is your duty as a sales leader to prepare the members of your team for their future in the industry, whether that future is with the company or somewhere else.
Don’t allow your team to function with just the bare minimum of knowledge. Everyone in the sales process should be working to improve their level of expertise in the field, including you, and every day should be a learning experience.
Therefore, always strive to give your team members the tools and sales tips they need to handle any situation that may arise at a professional level and within the sales process.
Your team will become better at selling when they see that you’re not just interested in the company, but also in their future.
9. Show the team that they are valued
Additionally, you should put a great deal of effort into demonstrating to your team members their individual worth.
Again, your team isn’t made up of automatons, and letting them know how much you value them can go a long way in contributing to sales motivation.
Go out of your way to acknowledge everyone’s contribution, and give different incentives, no matter how small; you’d be surprised at what a big impact this small change can have on your team’s motivation and sales results.
10. Reveal the bigger picture
Your career is typically what pays the bills for most people. We have the jobs we do because they enable us to support our loved ones and ourselves. Our jobs also offer the possibility to find deeper meaning in our work, which is a big motivation to wake up every day and put our time into the organization we work for.
Regularly emphasize the mission, vision, and values of your business. Show the sales team the potential impact of those ideas by tying them to a sales goal, activity, or metric.
Find evidence of the benefits your organization can provide to the local population and community. User reviews, testimonials, case studies, and customer success stories will be the most valuable assets in this situation.
This can also be a good wake-up call to take into account who you’re doing business with. Are your customers making it easier or more difficult to motivate your sales team?
Do they actually want to help these people, or do they not feel the human connection required to establish a positive, mutually beneficial relationship?
Conclusion
The key to inspiring motivation is identifying the factor that motivates your reps to go above and beyond. Even if you give unmotivated people $1,000 cash, they won’t suddenly start performing at the top of their game.
The people who have the self-discipline and inner talent to work for a reward will shine if you can figure out what makes your sales team feel inspired.
You’re already doing it incorrectly if your goal is to inspire the entire sales team with a single strategy or do the same things. To lead their team in the most effective way possible, sales leaders need to get to know the individuals on their team.
If you want to motivate others, take the time to learn what motivates them to get out of bed and go to work each day. The rest ought to be automatic.
The prospect of not having to work motivates people more than anything else at work.