How to Motivate Your Sales Team

Sales managers often face the challenging task of motivating their team. These realistic ways for motivating your team will help you get started!

For sales managers, one of the biggest challenges they face can often be ensuring their teams are motivated. A lot of times sales managers will take the wrong route as they try to motivate sales team members, however. They’ll try to do things that are flashier, such as big trips or commissions but that doesn’t deal with the root causes that lead to a lack of motivation.

Trying to take flashy, short-term steps to remedy a motivation problem isn’t going to be a sustainable long-term solution. It’s important for sales managers to see this, and work on understanding why things aren’t happening as they should be. 

The following are some things to know about motivating your sales team in realistic, long-term ways. 

Use Metrics

When you’re working on motivating your sales team and also holding them accountable, it’s important to have concrete metrics to show them where they need to make improvements. This is helpful because it gives them a baseline and then they can see how they’re improving. This in and of itself can be a motivating factor. 

Ensure that you’re using advanced sales reporting software and tools to allow you to have a centralized view of what’s going on so that you can then show those numbers to your team. 

Using sales reporting tools can also help you dive deeper into what some issues may be, so you can specifically tackle those with your team. 

Ask Your Team What Management Style Works Best for Them

When you’re managing a sales team, everyone is going to have different personalities, and they’re going to respond to management styles differently. Avoid the learning curve by going straight to the source. 

Ask the people on your team how they want to be managed. Ask them what you can do to change yourself in a way that will help them. 

A lot of times sales managers focus on what their team could be doing differently, but they don’t look at places they could make a change themselves. 

Along with learning how your sales team members like to be managed, why not ask them how motivated they’re feeling and what motivates them? Check-in in this specific way on a regular basis. Ask them what derails their sense of motivation and how you can help them along the way.

Set Specific Long and Short-Term Goals

Goal-setting is an important part of motivation. Goal-setting needs to be done for the short and long-term for it to be most effective.

A lot of effective sales managers will create simple daily goals that are relatively easy to achieve. Then, they’ll do weekly goals that have a more significant impact on the business, and finally higher-value monthly goals. 

Let People Choose Their Rewards

Motivation can be intrinsic but also extrinsic. With that being said, not everyone is extrinsically motivated in the same way. Ask your sales team how they want to be rewarded for meeting goals and milestones. 

You can give them parameters within which the reward has to fall such as a budget, but beyond that, give them the freedom to choose. 

Promote a Purpose

People want to work for companies that share their values. They also want to feel like they’re working for an organization with a mission that they support and are a proud part of. You want to make sure your sales team is always clear on company mission, and you want to show your employees how they’re part of that mission. 

Show them in specific terms how they are an essential element of achieving company mission. Give your sales team a sense of purpose and reinforce it on a regular basis. This is a big part of inspiring them. 

Build Trust

If you want your team to be motivated and performing at peak levels, they have to trust you. Build trust and focus on cultivating relationships with everyone you manage. Good ways to build trust include always being direct and honest. 

Don’t try to keep things hidden or try and be indirect when you’re talking with your team. If there’s a problem, address it in an upfront way. 

Finally, think about a formalized mentorship program. Mentorship can create a very strong team. When you have a mentorship program, it helps foster the sense of trust and purpose detailed above. It also shows your team that you believe in them and you’re willing to invest your own time and resources into ensuring they succeed. Plus, when you’re serving as a mentor, you’re working right alongside your team.

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