07 May How to motivate your Sales Team – Sales Motivation

Sales motivation is vital for your workforce to perform efficiently.

Salespeople form the backbone of any business in the market. It is the sales people who take your business to the target audience. In spite of painstaking training, most salespeople find it extremely difficult to combat the steep competition in their market. It is highly critical to make sure that your sales department is always geared up to face any challenge and perform well under stress.
 
How can you motivate your sales team and boost their efficiency and productivity?

• The first step is to know what is important to them in their professional as well as personal lives and tap into what motivates them.
• Try experimenting with different pay packages, bonuses and prizes.
• Cash is indeed the master when it comes to sales motivation. (Based on results)
• Try including a paid vacation for 2.

 
According to the popular Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you can find five levels of needs for a man which can be arranged in the form of a pyramid. The four levels at the bottom are comprised of the usual needs like, food, need for safety, for belonging, and self-esteem. Finally, at the top of the hierarchy you will find “self-actualization,” or according to Maslow, “growth needs”. So, it is clear that financial compensation alone cannot motivate your sales professionals. They look for appreciation and encouragement at their workplace. Most professionals work harder when their efforts are readily appreciated and acknowledged.

• Communicate with your sales professionals openly and allay their fear of judgment so that they share their ideas and opinions freely.
• Give them a reason to work harder to attain what you desire from them.
• Involve your sales team in the top level discussions on the upcoming projects and demonstrate your willingness to value their suggestions and opinions.

 
This will encourage them to contribute much more to the progress of your enterprise. It will create a sense of belonging to the company. Keep them updated about the status of the company and keep them informed about their performance through weekly review reports and statistics so that they may be inspired to be competitive and as a result, work harder.
When you inspire competitiveness in your sales champions, you must make sure that it is healthy and productive. Encourage the members of your sales team to help and mentor each other so that there is a sense of co-operation and friendship in the team.

• Keep the different departments of your enterprise engaged in constant communication.
• Arrange games and contests and make recreational activity a part of their daily routine so that the sales department may get to interact and socialize and as a result, work more cooperatively.

 
Salespeople are often prone to rejections by the customers. Train them in such a way that they do not to take rejections personally, but see them as added experience. A salesperson should block the negative influence of rejection, analyze its cause and accordingly make amends in his or her sales approach.