4 Ways to Motivate Your Sales Team

4 Ways to Motivate Your Sales Team

As a sales leader, there are many ways you can influence your team to create a positive work environment and increase productivity. It can be easy to get caught up in the numbers and become a "dashboard sales manager" who does not have the power to truly impact team performance. Don't get us wrong, numbers and KPIs are important, but true team growth happens outside of spreadsheets.

In a leadership role, you are responsible to help motivate your team. Many view motivation in sales as a whip or a carrot, but true motivation comes from the emotional state of the individuals on your team and team culture. Sales can be an emotional rollercoaster that directly impacts motivation levels, but using these tactics you can help your sales reps navigate the lows and build a kick-ass sales team.

1. Get to know your team
2. Coach your sales reps
3. Lead by example
4. Foster great culture

Get to know your team

Each sales rep on your team has different motivators. Employees are humans and things that go on outside of work directly impact how your sales reps perform at work. It is important to understand the driving factors that affect your team outside of work positively or negatively. Understanding the real reasons why your reps show up to work each day, other than a paycheck, will position you in a way to better cater to their true motivations.

A way to understand a rep's driving factors is to bring personal conversation into your one-on-ones. You should play to your sales rep's external motivators to help them set goals at work and help them overcome personal blockers that negatively affect performance. Doing so builds trust and camaraderie between sales reps and leaders. Trust is important because it builds a level of accountability that can motivate your reps to hit their goals. You should also share your external driving factors so that they understand why you do what you do.

Coach your sales reps

A sales coach is the opposite of a dashboard sales manager. "A sales coach observes performance, identifies a challenge, and works to rapidly make an individual better" (Sorey & Bray, The Five Secrets of a Sales Coach, ClozeLoop). Our team draws heavily from ClozeLoop's frameworks. During initial onboarding, it is especially important to make sure that you ramp up your sales reps through practical training activities such as role-plays and call coaching. This will allow you to understand an individual's strengths and weaknesses so that you can help your rep build an effective plan to overcome the challenges they face.

Remembering to get to know your sales rep's external motivators while coaching is essential to help identify the rewards for success or consequences of failure. When both you and your sales rep have a clear understanding of how their performance truly affects them, conversations about accountability become more effective. Your one-on-ones will be more collaborative, allowing you and your rep to work towards a common goal.

Lead by example

Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty, pick up the phone and set an example of a successful sales call or demo. When reviewing the call with your team, ask things like, “what could I have done differently?” Allow your sales reps to learn from your mistakes to improve their skills. Your reps will be more likely to listen to your coaching if you put yourself in their shoes. Doing this not only gives your reps the opportunity to learn and build trust, but it gives them the ability to coach you. A quality sales leader must be coachable. Allowing your sales reps to help you improve shows them that even you always strive to be better at what you do. This motivates them to do the same.

Foster great culture

Great team culture can be the most difficult thing for a sales leader to get right, but it is the most important factor in individual rep motivation. It also affects your motivation as a sales leader. A sales team with great culture will set the bar high and push team members to achieve. Building culture starts with selecting individuals with the skills and attitudes that fit your vision. Picking individuals who are coachable and who are willing to contribute to your team's growth will put you on the right path toward success.

By keeping your sales reps motivated, your team will have more success and it will show in your overall performance metrics. At Symbo, we strive to maintain high levels of motivation because sales can be tough, but it is extremely rewarding when the team is aligned and focused on a common goal.