Motivating Your Sales Team

If you’re in business, no doubt you’ll be up to date with the modern view on employee motivation – what works and what doesn’t. And if you aren’t, let me fill you in.

The old, traditional methods of motivating employees with award programs, bonuses, financial incentives, company cars, free dinners, etc. etc. have been proven not to work in the long term. In a nutshell, the only real motivation that works costs nothing and comes from the employees themselves. Simply, these are self-pride, self-confidence, and the self-satisfaction of knowing they are doing and being the best they can do/be and their company is proud of and acknowledges their achievements. This sense of knowing that what they do is important and worth doing and appreciated cannot be “bought”. It is priceless.

You can spot this type of person a mile away. He or she is the one who strides confidently through the corridors, proud of their company and open about it, take their work more seriously than others, are committed to their career and see their company and themselves almost as “one”. Chances are they are also the best at what they do, or are aiming for that position. Perhaps these are the same people who look for training opportunities themselves. What makes them different? They have goals. They have dreams to fulfill. They’re “driven”. They’re “motivated”. That’s the difference.

Imagine, for a moment, if everyone on your sales team had this drive… this motivation. It is possible. Just think of your favorite sports team!

So what can you do to develop that same motivation in YOUR team?

For a start, you can stop emphasizing success/failure in personal terms. Doing this sets people up to feel like failures, when it could be a simple matter of more training needed. You need to build people up, not put them down. You need to encourage them all to be the best they can be and encourage them with positive feedback, even with the smallest of accomplishments. Every accomplishment, no matter how small or trivial, is a step forward in the right direction – and you want more of that. You need to instill self-pride in each team player, and pride in their company and product or service. You need to build their confidence that they can do it and already, they are on their way to doing it. They will come to believe that, if you believe that.

This doesn’t mean you “hand feed” them by doing things for them they could and should be doing themselves, such as creating leads, closing sales, etc. You may assist them, but let them “accomplish” it themselves. Allow your team to learn and be there for them with helpful suggestions and ideas, but don’t do the work for them. You want your team to develop their skills and abilities and take pride in their own accomplishments.

You can do this by ensuring your team understands what is required of them and where that fits in with the organization’s mission and values. Let it be understood that the organization only hires “the best” – that alone will make every individual member of your team “think” about their performance. If they are already considered “one of the best”, they will want to retain that title. If your company really does hire just any old body to work in Sales, this does not say much for the sales team and the effect this has on the esteem of others in the team is not likely to be very positive.

Give them pride in their company by promoting the organization’s Mission Statement and educating them on how that applies to them and their role in the company. Ensure they “buy in” to the company’s mission and values. (If you don’t know how to do that, call me on 215-699-4949. One of my services includes teaching techniques on how to achieve this, and more, through my organizational programs.)

Rather than talk about what’s going wrong, talk about what is working/going right and ask for ideas on how to get more things to work/go right. When you shift your staff’s focus to what is working/going right, their brains tend to think along those lines rather than concentrate on what is not working. You can affect the mindset of your entire department just by this simple trick of focusing on what is already working.

It’s obvious that an ill-trained sales person who accomplishes little is not going to have a high self-esteem. Their mindset is already focused on what is not working and what is wrong with them and their ability to succeed. They may blame themselves, the product/service they have to promote, and the company for lack of support. With correct training, these employees can be turned around to become positive, self-confident, and productive members of your sales division.

One of the most important things any company can do to improve motivation is perform regular training sessions – not just weekly meetings, but real training/practice sessions where the difficult issues can be addressed and the basics covered. You need to work with an up-to-date, effective curriculum devised by a sales training professional. When your team is confident in their skills and ability, this will have an immediate effect on their self esteem and levels of motivation. It’s hard to be enthusiastic and confident when you don’t know what you are doing!

I have developed individual sales training programs for many organizations and have also put out specialized sales training kits for use as home study and that can also be utilized for in-house training. If you would like to find out more about how I can help your organization, please call me on 215-699-4949 or email me at Terri@terrilevine.com. Alternatively, if you like the idea of the sales training kits, you can read more about these on the website at http://www.selling-without-selling.com/.

We also have highly qualified and certified Sales Coaches who can work with teams or individuals in your organization either in person or via telephone sessions on a regular basis. This form of coaching has had remarkable results and reinforces any training given. I, personally, have also been hired to teach supervisors and managers how to “coach” their employees, and this can be very cost effective and provide long term benefits.

This isn’t just about boosting morale, although that is often part of it. This is about putting programs into place that train your sales staff in effective selling techniques that match today’s market, using proven methods that work because they’ve been tried and tested. This is not about rehashing old materials or somebody else’s materials. I have many years in Sales and know exactly what is going on and what is needed to succeedin the sales profession. Improving the bottom line is my area of expertise.

In a nutshell, developing a confident and motivated sales team is not something that need cost a fortune and take years to be effective. The techniques used are simple and easy to apply. Mostly, it involves change, positive change in the way each member and manager communicates, thinks and feels together with programs and strategies to use to improve their individual selling performance and abilities.