Keeping your sales team motivated should be the number one sales strategy of any business owner or sales manager. Your team may have the best skills, but lack of motivation kills productivity, and ultimately sales performance.

Organisations with low employee engagement experienced 18% lower productivity. As the face of the company to customers, how do you keep your sales representatives motivated?

 

Build Trust

The foundation of employee motivation is trust. And while we can fan the flames of motivation, that fire still inherently resides in them. All of us are motivated by something. What drives your sales representatives? It could be vacationing in Europe for a month, saving enough for children’s education or early retirement.

To know what makes your sales representatives tick, a good relationship built on trust must exist first. Dan Tyre, HubSpot executive, wrote, “If your team doesn’t trust you and doesn’t believe you have their best interests at heart, it’ll be difficult for them to be inspired and driven by their work”.

See your sales representatives as people entrusted to you to nurture and grow. Care about what they care, and they’ll care about what you care. Get to know their personal and professional dreams and visions.

Dan Tyre suggested asking each salesperson, “I want to make sure we are in a trusting relationship. How can we build trust between us?” It breaks down walls and let them know your bigger aim than just being a boss.

 

Customise Interaction

Each employee has different personalities with varying wants, work styles, rewards preferences and desired employee engagement activities. Instead of having a cookie-cutter approach, find out what works best for them.

An easy way to know would be to ask. This would tremendously improve their reception over your sales management style. For example, some of your sales representatives prefer to meet once a month, while others like to touch base every week. Some like public recognition or compliments, while some enjoy a more service-oriented form of appreciation.

Each has a sales goal to meet but give them room to use their creative sales strategy to achieve their goal. Allow maximum freedom with clear, healthy moral boundaries of keeping the integrity, laws and policies of the company and country.

Bhavin Parikh, CEO of Fast Company, shared that we all love the feeling of ownership. Hence, it’s important to give employees a sense of ownership over their projects.

 

Cover the Basics

We can give our motivational speech all day. But failing to take care of their basic needs make us look like cheering slave drivers. Are your staffs working without proper coverage of their health and well-being? This includes vacation time, health benefits and insurance.

Employees who are happy with company benefits are more likely to be satisfied with their vocation. You can go beyond the standard by offering nutrition counselling and child care assistance. Gain trust by taking care of their basics.

Also, Spherion, SAP and Society for Human Resource Management performed a survey among employees. They found that the No. 1 factor that motivates employees is compensation. Hence, make your sales commission attractive and challenging enough. As a goal-driven bunch, this would motivate them to push beyond their sales forecast.

So, here are the ways on how to motivate employees, which would inevitably increase their sales performance. As a business owner who especially doubles up as a sales manager, we trust you will see tangible results from applying these fundamental steps.