It can be difficult to stay motivated within sales. After all, no matter how hard you work as a salesperson, there will be many instances in which you don’t succeed in making a sale. These kinds of letdowns can hurt motivation over time.
Therefore, it’s important for managers of sales teams to find ways to consistently motivate their team and help them get through the challenging times when efforts aren’t paying off. Here are a few ways to better motivate your sales team:
Ask Salespeople on Your Team What Management Style They Would Prefer
The last thing that a salesperson wants when they aren’t doing well is to feel like they’re being pestered by their manager to report on their lack of progress. Some salespeople like frequent meetings to discuss how things are going and seek out advice and encouragement.
Other salespeople would rather meet less frequently so that they can take the opportunity to feel encouraged by the successes that they’ve made in the course of a month or several months and skim over the failures. To motivate your team best, ask them how often they’d like to meet and even whether they would rather initiate meetings or have you remind them.
You can also ask your salespeople how they would prefer to get feedback from you. Some people prefer face-to-face meetings where they can discuss feedback with you in real-time. Others would rather get the feedback over an email so they can react without feeling like you are reacting to their reaction.
Some people love to be praised in front of the group while others find its experience cringe-worthy. Find out exactly what your sales team wants when it comes to communication from you.
Know What Motivates Your Team
It’s pretty hard to motivate someone unless you know what they find motivating. Talk to your team about what keeps them going so that you can keep these parameters in mind when you are praising them and giving them feedback.
Ask each team member what their motivations are in the long and short term. Find out what they do to motivate themselves so that you will have a better chance of being able to motivate them. You can also ask them directly what they would like you to do to motivate them more.
Encourage Your Team to Take Care of Themselves
Too often, managers get caught up in motivating their salespeople to do their job better, without necessarily thinking about what else may be going on in their life that could be affecting their performance at work.
Motivate the whole person, not just the salesperson. Ask about their life. Are they getting enough to eat and sleep throughout the day? Are they making time for exercise and relaxation? If they aren’t, encourage them to take care of that need right then and there during the workday. You may be amazed by how much better your sales team performs when they take the time to take care of themselves throughout the workday.
Motivate Your Team Better
Keeping a sales team motivated can be a challenge. Sales is often not intrinsically motivating, especially when the rejections pile up. However, by learning what works best as far as management for your team members, understanding what gives them motivation, and making sure they’re taking care of themselves, you can do a lot to keep them focused and engaged even during difficult times.
