Whether it’s a demanding customer or an elusive sales target, the lives of salespeople are usually bustling. No wonder businesses are increasingly investing in tools that can support sales teams as they work towards optimizing their resources.
For instance, sales automation tools like Snov.io allow sales professionals to fill their funnel with quality targeted leads and lead them to conversion with a CRM toolbox. Similarly, businesses rely on landing page builder software to capture qualified leads by enticing website visitors to take the desired action, thus boosting lead generation efforts and sales in general.
However, no matter how impeccable sales automation platforms are, they won’t bring efficient results unless your sales team has a strong motivation behind their back. It’s the motivation that directly impacts productivity, team spirit, and company culture, hence your sales growth.
In this post, we’ll provide you with 11 tips to boost the motivation of your sales team and bring success to your business.
But first, let’s dive into the basics of salesforce motivation.
How salesforce motivation works
Your sales team isn’t homogeneous. As a rule, it consists of “core” performers that make a clear majority, a small group of top performers or “stars,” and a group of salespeople who are lagging behind.
You can better understand this division by looking at a salesforce performance curve:
It’s possible to boost performance at all points on the curve, especially if you use different strategies for each group. For instance:
- Core performers are motivated when given multi-tier targets and prizes and can participate in sales contests with rewards that vary in nature and value;
- Laggards show better results when offered quarterly bonuses (not just annual) and perform in the atmosphere of carefully planned social pressure;
- Stars should never have a ceiling on pay; instead, they can be motivated by overachievement commissions.
As a clever sales manager, you need to always differentiate these types of your salespeople and consider this difference while finding the right approach to motivating them.
But there are some general strategies that always work when it comes to motivating your sales team. Let’s discuss the 11 most actionable tips.
11 tips on how to motivate your sales team
1. Organize your work processes
Disorganized sales processes are one of the reasons sales teams fail to deliver the expected results. It creates confusion and wastes the team members’ time, thereby reducing productivity.
Imagine a situation where customer data is spread across multiple platforms, and you have to refer to all these applications before making a call. You’ll surely lose a lot of your valuable time while trying to analyze this data. Ultimately, you may also lose a customer because of poor customer experience – you’ll simply have no time to provide a positive one.
Therefore, you should think about how to ease the sales workflow for your sales reps to close deals consistently without any confusion or any other hassles.
The best approach to organize your sales processes is to use CRM software that would provide the complete customer information and activity in one place. Breaking the complex process into simpler stages will ease how your sales team does their daily tasks – an excellent motivation, isn’t it?
For example, after Gamiphy, a digital loyalty platform, started using Snov.io CRM to generate qualified leads and engage them with the help of email marketing campaigns, they’ve managed to modernize their manual processes and introduced the team to a seamless workflow, increasing their productivity and sales.
2. Set achievable goals
Setting clear goals helps the sales team understand the company’s expectations and track their progress. It fosters an environment of accountability, collaboration, and responsibility, motivating the team to carry out their tasks with interest and enthusiasm.
What you should keep in mind while managing a sales team is that these goals should be achievable. So, whenever you have big sales goals to communicate to your sales reps, break them down into smaller goals so that your team can accomplish them without feeling stressed and burnt out.
For instance, if you’re expecting your team to decrease customer churn, start with a small progress by setting clear deadlines, e.g., “Decrease churn rate by 1% within the first quarter.”
Here are a few examples of the goals you can set for the sales team in a long perspective and smaller goals so that they look more achievable:
In addition, you can connect with each sales team member to better understand their strengths and weaknesses. An effective way to do this is by using employee survey tools and collecting valuable feedback. The survey could be team-specific or company-wide. Nevertheless, it will help you assign them personal goals in their area of expertise, ultimately boosting their motivation and engagement.
3. Delegate responsibilities
Encourage employees to take on responsibilities for the assigned tasks. It will make them feel they are trusted, and they will be happy to take ownership and ultimately perform better in their roles.
Whether it’s a simple demo session with a newly acquired lead or a lengthy discussion with a difficult customer, let your sales reps do the job in a way that looks best for them. By doing that, you are not just pushing them to perform better but also boosting their confidence.
4. Track progress
Another important factor that motivates sales team members is their progress in achieving their goals. You don’t realize how far you’ve come until you look back and see the trace of your achievements.
Tracking progress equips you with the information required to monitor sales performance. It offers thorough insights into sales deals, allowing you to modify the sales strategy to accommodate new changes. Furthermore, it gives you a vision of how to reallocate resources or tools to help the team perform better.
Get used to regularly tracking your salespeople’s performance and sharing insights with your team. This will motivate them to achieve more.
5. Celebrate wins
Celebrating small wins like closing a sales deal, convincing a problematic lead to sign up for a free trial, or scheduling back-to-back demos is necessary to boost employee morale.
Focus on creating a culture of recognition where employees feel acknowledged for their contributions and achievements. A simple thanks or call-out during a meeting can boost employees’ happiness by no bounds. When you appreciate them for what they’re doing regularly, they will truly believe they are bringing value.
If you need a tool to help you recognize your sales team’s achievement, you can sign up for an employee appreciation platform such as Bonusly. SurveyMonkey, an online survey development tool, uses it to connect remote employees, enhance their engagement, and motivate them to work harder.
6. Reward your team with incentives
The sales job is often stressful owing to the types of customers sales representatives deal with daily. Rewards and perks will significantly contribute to your employees’ loyalty. In fact, 66% of people feel motivated to stay at their jobs because of an excellent incentives program.
Motivate your team to perform their best by rewarding them with incentives and other perks in addition to the sales compensation on every deal, say, when your team achieves certain milestones or towards the end of the respective quarters. The incentives could be monetary or tangible rewards like gift vouchers, food coupons, etc.
You can also get creative while rewarding employees. For example, you can offer them the best parking spot in the office building or double time for lunch breaks.
An incentive program helps you maintain a balance between strenuous work and employee motivation, offering small doses of happiness to sales reps and encouraging them to put in the extra effort.
7. Build team trust
According to the research conducted by the University of Warwick, happier and more satisfied employees are 12% more productive. Apart from incentives, you can make your team more comfortable by offering them some sort of entertainment – say, taking them out for fun outings, such as a trip to an amusement park, sports night, or live performances.
Remember that motivation increases with trust, so build it. Here’s what you can do to build team trust:
- Be transparent with your sales reps. Whether sharing expectations or giving feedback, being honest prevents people from making unnecessary assumptions. For example, if sales representatives close a few deals with a difficult customer, appreciating them in a meeting can boost their morale. However, if you neglect it, there are chances they might think you are not happy with the results.
- Respect each other’s time, effort, and ideas. If you say you are open to suggestions, don’t disapprove of the ideas only because you don’t agree with someone. Let the team feel comfortable sharing their insights and recommendations with you.
- Organize some team-building activities to promote camaraderie among the team and participate too. Team spirit adds responsibility and motivation.
- Never place blame on anyone. Pointing fingers won’t make your sales reps more motivated. Vice versa, this can lead to extra pressure and create an unhealthy work atmosphere. Instead, encourage everyone to approach the mistake in a constructive manner. Let team members help each other out with new ideas and a plan of action.
8. Give timely feedback
4 out of 10 employees feel actively disengaged with the work when they don’t receive any feedback. Feedback contributes to long-term employee motivation, boosts employees’ confidence, and promotes a healthy work culture in the team.
Conduct regular feedback meetings to communicate with your team, where you will help them identify their strengths and areas of improvement. Alternatively, you can send your sales reps feedback via regular emails. This will make them feel you are on the same page and ready to stretch your supporting hand.
9. Play the role of a mentor
Helping your team become industry experts is beneficial for the company’s success. The goal of every sales team should not be just meeting sales targets. It should be ready to keep up with the trends of the industry.
Guide your team to implement a sales philosophy that aligns with the ongoing digital transformation happening in sales. Invest in training your sales reps to use various tools and tactics.
Employ a strategic coaching process using real-life examples and streamline it by designing sales content, playbooks, process workflows, and step-by-step guides.
10. Say bye to micromanagement
Supervising the sales team is beneficial for every organization. However, if you overdo it, your sales reps will feel too much control and pressure, which will inevitably kill motivation.
Try to create an environment that supports autonomy and generates a sense of accountability in employees. You can achieve this by reducing the number of status update meetings, unnecessary follow-up emails, and frequent pings on team chat channels.
Provide your team with the tools required to complete their tasks and ensure you communicate regularly and quickly solve any misunderstanding. No excessive watching, please.
11. Stay positive and encourage optimism
It’s usually the sales team that faces the wrath of customers. Anger, rejection, confusion, and disagreements are a big part of sales. However, it’s important to rise above all these challenges and stay focused and motivated throughout the day.
You can meet with the sales team to understand their worries and guide them with a plan of action. Ask them to acknowledge their defeats and aim toward turning them into victories. Encourage and support each other in times of difficulties and always keep an optimistic outlook.
Wrapping up
There are numerous ways to motivate the sales team and help them perform better to achieve the company goals. Start by defining a proper sales process, designing a workflow, and setting achievable goals for your team.
Experiment with different strategies for motivation. Ensure you value your team experience and share your feedback on a timely basis. And remember about transparency – Snov.io CRM can help you organize your teamwork so that every member sees their contribution to the sales process and feels motivated.
Do you use any other sales motivation tactics? Let us know in the comments below.