Motivate Your Sales Team
We have all heard of ideas and concepts to motivate sales professionals. Some of them have to taste success in order to be driven by it. Motivation comes from hope and hope comes from desire. Here are a few tips to boost your employees' desire to work with and for you and get the best from them.
1. MAKE SURE YOUR TEAM IS HAVING FUN
When people have fun in what they do, their tendency to look at the clock and go back home early is much reduced, that's obvious. Some of your best employees are people who work with much heart and passion, but not always necessarely: read our article about Sales Closers here.
Having fun does not mean transforming the office into a pool party. You must make sure that your employees actually like what they do. It's obvious that there will be some annoying and hard work for most of your coworkers. For example: cold calling. Most of us think that cold calling is a repetitive job. Cold calling could actually be one of the most exciting jobs because you cannot expect nor predict what's gonna happen once the person on the other side of the line has picked up the phone.
Make sure your sales team is having fun at cold calling. There are a few ways to do it. First, tell your sales team what to sell and how to sell it. Give everyone the same script. Tell them that they MUST use this script to break the ice with the person on the other line. If the prospect reponds positively and if the conversation lasts further, you could tell your employee that he is then authorized to continue talking to his new lead without using any script. He'll feel that he's free to sell the way he wants. It will build self-confidence and motivation.
Many firms ask their employees to smile, not only airlines and hotels. Now, almost every service firm requests to see a smile on their employees' faces. Those firms understood that smiling actually creates value within their organization by improving people's motivation.
2. TRUST YOUR SALES TEAM
While trust is a difficult thing to establish within a sales organization for several reasons such as the challenging calculation of commissions or even the constant competition between your best closers, encourage team-building to ward off conflict before it starts. Have competing co-workers meet to establish relationships and build trust. The best teams always engage with each other.
When trust is absent, professionals within your company start creating their own shadow processes of how your organization actually works. They start building their own parallel rules. While you may not want that to happen, you may be willing to accept that they set up their own sales goals once the quota is set. Sales people love being their own bosses. Make them get that feeling once they have reached their initial target.
Also, remember to establish trust by sharing data, figures, facts and internal policies. Make sure your team know all they need to know. When there is a claim made by one of your employees, show that employee how and why it could or not be solved. Your answers shall always be crystal clear.
3. BOOST YOUR SALES
As a manager, take the time to walk around the sales floor with a US$100 bill in one of your hands. Show it and say that you'll give it to the first person who is able to schedule a meeting with a new lead by the end of the week. You can bet that same bill that you will have 3 meetings booked within the upcoming hour. That little game will cost you $US100 and will allow you to see who performs better when they can feel the reward into their hands.
Make your employees feel the reward. If one says to you that he wants to earn more money, ask that employee what he will do with the money: buying a new car? A new TV-set? If one says he needs some time-off, make him dream of some amazing vacation time by browsing destinations online with him. Tell him you will personnally book his hotel room if he is able to pull the sales trigger now.
Make your teams desire more. If you need hungry people, hire them starving. No need to scare your teams: you must show them respect and expect it in return. Reward your team verbally when deals are closed. Acknowledge when people reach their targets. Help them build their own success and achieve yours.
4. SHARE THE BIG PICTURE
Your sales team must understand your sales goals as clearly as possible. Make sure they understand your commission plan by keeping it simple with clear rules.
Before sharing policies and target figures with your teams, you should spend some time with them to share with them the values of your organization and also your mission. This can be called inner marketing; we will discuss it in one of our next articles.
Start today to motivate your sales team in order gain their confidence. Once you get one's confidence, it becomes easy to start building a long-term successful relationship and to increase your sales tremendously.
