Sales Motivation: 6 Tips to Keep Your Sales Reps Motivated

Introduction

Every sales manager's dream is a 100% motivated sales team. However, for this dream to become a reality, sales leaders need to work to make it happen. They need to find ways to ignite their team members' intrinsic motivation to win, improve, and be recognized. Money talks, but it is not enough to get you a highly motivated sales team. Motivation runs deeper than numbers. Thus, in addition to monetary compensation, use frequently changing motivational tactics tailored to salespeople. There are many ways to increase your sales team's productivity and motivation. These 6 ideas will deliver:

1. Encourage Everyone to Track and Share Wins

In sales, it is common to focus on rejections and drawbacks, and to become demotivated when they occur frequently. However, have your sales team focus more on wins by asking them to track daily or weekly wins – and send you a message or email about it. They can be as small as a great conversation with a customer, a new tactic they learned, a breakthrough, a tentative "yes" from a prospect, or their own professional growth. Sharing wins with others, whether small or large, multiplies the morale-boosting effect.

2. Gamification

As the name suggests, Gamification is a modern strategic approach to digitally engage and motivate people to achieve their goals through game mechanics. Similarly, gamification is a great solution for motivating sales teams. Salespersons are ambitious and competitive in nature, and gamification plays into that perfectly. It helps you set up competitions, complete specific tasks, and earn points. These points accumulate and can be exchanged for rewards. Thus, the routine task becomes more engaging, leading to higher engagement and motivation.

3. Make Your Reps Feel Valued

A key driver of employee motivation is valuing them and making sure they know it. A study by the American Psychological Association found that feeling valued at work is linked to employee performance and productivity. Half of employees who do not feel valued at work intend to look for a new job, leading to high employee attrition. Thus, here are the top five ways to make sales reps feel valued:

• Include them in the decision-making and strategy-making process
• Create opportunities for their professional development and advancement
• Offer adequate and fair monetary compensation. Solutions like Incentivate can help organizations manage incentive programs more efficiently, ensuring reps are rewarded accurately and transparently for their performance.
• Non-monetary rewards such as flex time, mentoring programs, public recognition, time off, discounts, experiential rewards, etc.
• Create flexible work arrangements

4. Share the Big Picture

The key is to show the reps exactly where they fit within the big picture. Show them that their actions directly affect the company's success. Have a discussion with each of your teammates regarding your company goals, what strides have been made to reach these goals, and the path available to them through which their contribution will make a great difference in the future. If they don’t have a clear view of development within the company, they will not have any inducement to work harder. Hence, help them establish a path to get there within the broader context of their long-term goals.

5. Offer Incentive Choices

Offering more money, time off, or gifts is a great way to give employees a goal to work toward. However, every salesperson is motivated differently. One perk will appeal to the masses, and others will be motivated by a different incentive. Your best bet of getting the right incentive for your team is by giving choices and letting them decide on what incentive they’d prefer the most. Research shows that organizations that adopt different types of incentives see 33% more sales reps achieving quota, a 23% higher team quota attainment rate, and 10% higher satisfaction.

6. Recognize the Sales Team Publicly

Do you acknowledge your team's contributions and celebrate their accomplishments in a way that the whole company can recognize them? If you’ve ever felt underappreciated at work, then you definitely know how crucial recognition is in the workplace. While a large paycheck is always appreciated, a public demonstration of appreciation can be more motivating. To build high morale all year long, here are 8 small but powerful ways to recognize employees:

• Give shout-outs
• Annual recognition with monetary bonuses or trips
• Facilitate social events to commemorate huge achievements
• Give kudos to teammates individually at team meetings
• Take them to lunch/ dinner
• Award “most valuable player” status monthly or quarterly
• Just say thank you!

Closing Word

Always remember that your sales team is a direct link between your company and its customers. Hence, give your sales team better opportunities, share the bigger picture, provide fair incentives, and make them feel valued, and you will be surprised at how all these factors prove immensely valuable to your company as a whole and will return invested effort, resources, and money many times over. In short, do everything in your power to make and keep your salespeople motivated. Be direct and ask them, "what would motivate you?" Be open to their input and try different methods and tactics. You never know what might work for you. How do you motivate your sales team? What tactics have worked best for you, and what haven't?