It’s no surprise to motivate your sales team to work better and even more efficiently. Be it the creative team of your organization, or even the sales team. Any employee who is as motivated to finish the work and get the results, will work towards it with full focus.
However, it is a proven fact that cracking jokes all day would not get your teams motivated and work good all day every day. It would also not raise any morale, and instead you can find your team in slumps.
It is especially true to motivate your sales team. The pressure on the sales team is higher than ever. Completing targets, or looking if the processes are followed through, only means that the plate is full. And to get the best results out of it, all they need is a little push, and motivation.
So, what can be the best ways to motivate your sales team to increase sales? Well, here are some tips you can find helpful and those would get you the results you are looking for.
1. Focus on your key sales operations instead of results:
When you focus only on the sales results, it can prove to be a pretty stressful and hectic thing. You could be a salesperson, or even a sales manager, one key point is that you can always influence, but never control the results.
So, what can you actually control?
You can control how you are giving inputs to motivate your sales team. A simple team meeting with a good direction can improve the working of that employee. You can always have the highest possible positive effects to achieve your goals.
To clarify, you can easily control if you want to make that sales call, you can also control what you can talk on the call, like what percentage you would listen as compared to what percentage you would talk. And even after this, the decision to move forward with the process or put a stop there would entirely depend on the buyer.
Here is a pro tip for sales motivation: Keep you team motivated by encouraging them to properly build their schedule around some of these very important sales actions. To put it simply, always keep a focus on the means, and the results will automatically follow.
2. Public expressions of gratitude
Whether you feel valued for your work is a key factor in determining your level of satisfaction at work.
Numerous articles chosen for this piece (such as those from Canadian Business, Fortune, and Business Insider) emphasize the importance of appreciation as the cornerstone of every organizational plan to boost employee motivation.
Sales Advice: Here are a few fast ideas to show your sales crew that you appreciate them:
- Celebrate all accomplishments, not just significant ones.
- Offer particular kudos.
- Tell your team members you believe in them, then act on that belief by demonstrating it.
- Maintain an open door policy to promote honesty and openness.
- The phrase that everyone enjoys hearing is “thank you.”
- Have a “appreciation day” each month to recognise an exceptional employee who may not have had the best sales that particular month.
- Dole out “appreciation awards.”
3. Set a Goal, and not a path:
A great example for this particular point is that of Bhavin Parikh, the CEO of one of the test preparation company has always made it a point to discuss employee happiness in Fast Company. He always said that- “Since we all love the feeling of ownership, it’s important to give employees a sense of ownership over their projects.”
Another pro tip for sales motivation: One way to go about this is by setting a destination, a goal for the employees and leave it upon your team to find the right path there.
4. Blur the line between supervisor and employee:
Stefanie Daneau agrees with Parikh that a sense of ownership increases employee happiness.
She offers some wise counsel for leaders in her article for Entrepreneur: share.
In particular, a new team leader (not the manager) should be given main responsibility for any new projects that come up. Giving each team member a chance to take the wheel fosters a sense of ownership and unity, according to Daneau.
What duties may you assign to your sales team’s manager to motivate your sales team if you’re in that position?
Another way to frame this is: What tasks can you delegate that will inspire the growth of your team members?
5. If efficiency is not related to meaning, question it:
Barry Schwartz of The New York Times has explored the idea of how different companies often strive for efficiency, but how that is just on the surface. To have a deeper look at it, the companies should just make their workers more efficient.
An interesting observation that he has made is that this kind of routinization and division of labour among the employees will often cost unwanted resources to the employees, and also increase the level of disappointment in their work. The result? Employees will be less happy, and will have a decreased drive to complete their work.
A pro tip to motivate your sales team here: Look out for any kind of work that is routinized and that becomes monotonous. And once you identify that, make it a point to make the work more meaningful, challenging and even engaging.
6. Autonomy
According to Karl Staib, some employees are just unaware of how much autonomy they already have at work. The advice offered by Staib, author of the book Work Happy Now, is as clear-cut as it is brilliant:
Remind workers of the freedom they currently enjoy.
What liberties are your salespeople not utilizing, according to this sales motivation tip?
7. Make the processes interconnected:
According to Jayson Marwaha in Quartz, Medicare began determining how much money to pay hospitals based on the results of patient satisfaction surveys. Hospitals improved patient experiences as a result of this move, but nurses were undoubtedly not thrilled with the adjustments that followed.
Marwaha’s article speaks eloquently on the relationship between happiness and how we shouldn’t just emphasize the importance of one group’s happiness while neglecting another group’s happiness. It discusses how happy carers make a happier patient environment.
This was supported by a study performed by Harris Poll on behalf of the recruiting and staffing company Spherion. It was shown that 60% of workers said that seeing others happy at work makes them happier.
Tip to motivate your sales team: Make sure that the team is not solely focusing on the clients’ happiness. If your team strives to focus on each other’s’ happiness, it is proven that it will only positively affect the client experience.
As Spherion has rightly put it: “Happiness usually brushes off onto others.”
