A salesperson’s motivation is the most affecting factor in your business growth, yet it is mostly ignored. Don’t forget that a motivated sales team can take your business to the top and affect your business goodwill.
We acknowledge the importance of motivated salespersons, but what can we do to improve the salesperson’s motivation at work? No worries! We can adopt some simple strategies that can help to enhance the salespersons’ motivation level.
Before studying the tips to improve salesperson’s motivation, let’s talk about why they lack motivation?
Why does the Sales Team Lack Motivation?
Multiple factors can cause demotivation in salespersons. It can be high workload, job dissatisfaction, no work-life balance or a toxic work environment.
We must eliminate the factors creating demotivation in salespeople and choose the correct approach to keep the sales team motivated. So, let’s discuss some tips to improve a salesperson’s motivation.
Tips to Improve Salesperson’s Motivation
1. Adequate Workload
The common factor that makes most salespersons demotivated is inadequate workload. Make sure that the workload is neither too high nor too low.
Overburden can cause employee anxiety and result in a low sales rate. Similarly, an intense workload can make employees over-relaxed and lazy.
It’s time to realize that an efficient and consistent sales team is always better than an overburdened and stressful team. So managers should keep in mind all these aspects before assigning daily targets to their sales team.
2. Automation
Salespersons will be stuck into extra paperwork, printing, documentation and scheduling if you will not automate your system.
The manual handling tasks can take the sales team’s attention away from the real targets because their time and efforts will be consumed in manual activities. So we can’t decline the importance of system automation. It will result in the sales team’s better collaboration and higher productivity.
3. Make Goals
Employees should know why they are making efforts and what they will get after so much effort? So we make goals to give them directions and ensure that all the employees are on the same page.
After making a long-term goal, we must divide it into short-term goals. Short-term goals will keep the employees motivated because they can get a sense of achievement in a short period.
4. SMART Goals
We make goals to motivate the employees, but what if the goals make them demotivated? Yes, it sometimes happens when we make vague, unachievable, irrelevant goals. So we have to understand what types of objectives we should make to keep the salespersons motivated.
Here we use the concept of SMART goals. So a goal should be:
Specific
Always try to make clear, straightforward and comprehensive goals. If you include exaggerations and explanations, employees will lose their focus on the real purpose. So, deliver the goals as specifically as you can.
Measurable
Immeasurable goals create demotivation in employees. If managers say, “we want our team to be recognized as the most efficient team in the organization.” Each employee will take this statement according to their understanding.
So make a measurable goal, i.e. “We want to achieve the 500 target sales per week”. Employees will feel motivated toward this goal because it is a measurable goal.
Achievable
Before making a goal, keep in mind your employee’s capabilities and make challenging but achievable goals.
Challenging goals generates motivation, but unachievable goals create stress instead of motivation. How can a stressful salesperson perform well in the workplace? So, make the goals by keeping them achievable for employees.
Relevant
The goal should be related to the salesperson’s daily work routine. For instance, if you deliver the organization’s overall mission to your salespersons, that is:
“Make our company the icon of innovation in the technology industry.”
How can salespersons relate to this goal? How would they know what contributions they could make to make the company an innovation icon? So, make a relevant goal for salespersons.
For example:
“Customer complaints should not be more than five in a month.”
Time-bound
Always mention a specific time to achieve the goal, so the employees don’t get relaxed and feel lazy to accomplish the goal. Share daily, weekly or monthly targets with your employees to keep them motivated and consistent.
5. Appreciate and Give Rewards
Appreciate your employees for achieving the milestones. It develops a sense of achievement and employees tend to improve their performance.
You can encourage your employee’s good performance in different ways. Announcing bonuses, increments, promotions, and other rewards are essential to keep them motivated.
6. Ensure Employee Engagement
Mostly higher management makes decisions that the staff members follow. What if the salespersons are involved in sales-related decisions? Amazingly! It can multiply the employee’s engagement.
Once you allow salespeople to participate in decision-making and take their opinions, they work harder to support that decision. You will also get some fantastic ideas from healthy discussions with employees on the other side.
7. Create Healthy Competition
When managers announce target sales, salespersons usually try to make more sales than their teammates. It’s human nature to see their performance compared to the coworker’s performance. However, it is crucial to keep the competition healthy.
Unhealthy competition leads the employees to focus on their individual goals and ignore the team’s objective. Address the team goals and the salesperson’s individual goals to keep the competition healthy and beneficial.
8. Celebrate Achievements
Don’t forget to celebrate the small achievements of teams. The celebration brings a proud feeling to employees, which helps to encourage them.
Managers could also send invitees to the other departments. In this way, employees will get appreciation in front of others which will boost their motivation level.
9. Training and Development Programs
Stereotypes will make the salespersons demotivated. Keep your employees up to date with the new market strategies and trends.
It’s time to realize that training programs can enhance the productivity of your employees. Conduct the training sessions under strict supervision and then evaluate the impact of these sessions on your employees. You will get surprisingly positive results.
10. Be Flexible
Making administrative regulations and their implementation is a positive thing. However, very strict and inflexible rules make the salespersons demotivated. One day they will get frustrated from the same work routine.
Be flexible when you apply organizational strategies. Give employees room to try their creativity by letting them try their creative approach toward daily activities.
11. Give Relief
Salespersons sometimes need relief from the exhausting routine. Continuous work pressure can demote them, and a slight relief can bring their energy back. A short vacation, surprise dinner or corporate lunch are enough to give your employees relief.
Make sure that your employee can maintain a work-life balance. Managers can also offer flexible working hours to employees struggling with work-life balance. These small reliefs can make them happy.
12. Build Trust
Don’t always talk about the organization’s interest only. Make your salesperson feel that you do things for their individual development.
You can conduct career counselling sessions to help salespersons make better career decisions. This strategy will help you build trust in salespersons, who will eventually feel motivated.
13. Better Communication
Develop a strong connection with the salespersons. You have to make sure that the information smoothly travels within and outside the sales team.
A smooth flow of information keeps you updated about the salespersons’ activities, and you can control them in many ways. Seamless communication also increases a salesperson’s motivation level.
14. Job Satisfaction
A salesperson’s job satisfaction is directly linked with customer satisfaction. If your salesperson looks fresh, active, energetic and satisfied in front of customers, they can make the customers satisfied.
Make sure that your salespersons are satisfied with their job. Again smooth communication is essential to keep yourself updated about the salesperson’s satisfaction level.
Final Works
Motivation is something that can’t be created forcefully. So, learn some tips, and you will feel it is in your hands to keep the salespersons motivated. The key concept is to keep things simple for your salespersons and let them learn and grow creatively.
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