Have you ever been to a successful sales meeting or read an article on how to motivate your sales team? If so, you most likely noticed the main ingredients that make it successful. When looking at all the ideas and pieces of information, one thing is common among them; they all focus on empowering, inspiring and valuing each other.
That being said, here are some of the ways you can empower, inspire, value and motivate your sales team in their journey!
1. Set SMART goals
This one may be obvious, but it’s important. Goals give purpose and meaning to the work you do. You need to give your salespeople a goal to reach. Without a goal, they won’t know what to aspire or what constitutes success.
The SMART in S.M.A.R.T. goals stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. The importance of having a S.M.A.R.T goal is that it provides the clarity, focus and motivation your sales team needs in order to achieve their goals. It can also improve their ability to reach the goals by encouraging them with objectives and a completion date.
In addition to that, it would be even better if you could empower your team by allowing them to choose the goals that they want to achieve that fits into the S.M.A.R.T. category. This would allow them to take charge and be responsible for their own goals. Since the goals are created by the sales team themselves, it should be more achievable and realistic for them to conquer them.
2. Create a culture of recognition
When it comes to motivating your sales team, you have the power to make or break them. As the leader of the team, you are responsible for setting the tone. Are you creating a culture of recognition and encouragement? Or are you fostering an environment of criticism and demotivation?
It’s critical that you create a culture of recognition and encouragement. If you are constantly pointing out what your team is doing wrong, they will feel resentful and assume that nothing they do is right.
Instead, focus on what they’re doing right and give them the tools to keep improving. Provide your staff with the skills and knowledge they need to excel at their jobs. When people see that you’re investing in them and helping them grow professionally, they’ll feel valued and encouraged. This in turn motivates them to work harder for the team.
3. Organise Team building activities
Team building is key in the process of creating a team that is collectively working together towards a common goal. The importance and main purpose of team building is to create a strong team through forming bonds and connections. Creating these bonds through activities can be very beneficial to businesses and organisations in the long term.
When it comes to motivation, money isn’t always a huge factor — though it does play a role. Instead, things like feeling valued and connected with colleagues are crucial ingredients for a motivated sales team.
To top it off, team bonding time can play a huge role in providing your team with the space and time that they need to get off work and spend some leisure time with each other. This provides opportunities for your team to get to know each other better outside of work-related matters. Furthermore, team building activities can also help boost motivation by strengthening relationships between colleagues and helping them work together more effectively as a team. All in all, this creates a spirit among the team of challenging one another in order to achieve greater success all together.
4. Create a deeper meaning for your work
One of the best ways to motivate people is by showing them that what they’re doing matters. Creating a meaningful purpose for your sales team can help them remember why they should care about what happens at work every day.
Meaningful work is the number 1 reason people stay in a job for a long time. A recent survey done by the Harvard Business Review found that an overwhelming 90% of respondents would be willing to take a pay cut in exchange for a more meaningful job. This information shows that employees tend to become more motivated to do a great job when they find meaning in the work that they do.
Today we live in a culture of scarcity and over-consumption, where both fear and money are often used as motivational tools. The problem is that when it comes to motivating salespeople, fear doesn’t work as well as we think it does and money doesn’t always spell motivation either. Thus, this brings us to the ‘Why’. Understanding the reason that drives your sales team to work is important – Wanting to help others, receiving commissions, gaining the satisfaction of closing deals, getting the recognition of being the best in the team, and much more. Knowing these factors and helping your team connect the dots to the meaning behind their work can not only help you understand your team better but also cater to their needs in order to motivate them individually and collectively.
5. The Carrot (Incentives) and Stick Salt (Coaching) method
At SalesJourney360, instead of using the normal approach of Carrot and Stick, we believe in using the Carrot and Salt approach. As mentioned earlier, there might be a tendency for some to feel resentful or demotivated if they feel like nothing they are doing is right. By providing your sales team the resources they need to succeed, and the incentives to encourage them, you can help them understand their potential, boost their confidence and get them excited about the possibilities that lie ahead.
Knowledge is power. But it can also be confidence-inspiring. For some of your sales reps, their role may seem like a black box. They go out and talk to customers, but they don’t know what that means for them and for the business as a whole. One way to motivate them is by showing how the part they play, regardless of how small or big it may be, impacts the big picture. Inspire them. Provide them with the knowledge, training and tools that will help them become better sellers. The more knowledgeable your sales team is about the product or service they are selling and the more they believe in its benefits, the better equipped they will be to sell it.
Last but not the least, provide incentives. Sometimes all it takes to motivate a sales rep is an incentive. It doesn’t always have to be in monetary forms like a gift card or commission (although, why not?). Instead, you’ll be surprised how far a praise from you as their leader can go. By not offering incentives, you could be holding back your sales reps from reaching their full potential.
Go, go, go!!
And there you have it, a whole list of different ways to keep your sales team in their A game.
But the most important thing to do among all of the ways to motivate them is to simply take action.
Motivating your sales team is one of the most important tasks a leader can undertake. Salespeople are an essential part of any business, and it pays to keep them driven.
Whether you’re going to start hosting regular celebrations, setting higher goals, or running friendly competitions and activities, you can’t go wrong with any of the tips on the list.
