Struggling to Motivate your Sales Team? Tips from a Salesman on the Front Lines
I remember a conversation I had with my boss once. He had stopped by my desk and commented on my sales for that month.“Girl, you are killing it. If you keep this pace up, we won’t be able to afford your commissions.”
I laughed and followed it quickly with,
“What can I say, I’m motivated by the dollar. It was either this or hookin!”
Now I was joking, of course, but this is something every top performer really thinks. Good salespeople love the chase and are motivated to win! (i.e-make money!)
That’s why our culture has developed the stereotypes about salesman. Sales people are too aggressive, too pushy, and too, well, salesy…
But if you were to ask your sales team to define their job role for you, they’d probably say something like this.
I’m a risk-taker. I can handle rejection, and overcome the obstacles I need to get the sale. I make the company money, I create new jobs, and I get it done.
This attitude may be extremely annoying and hard to manage, but we can all agree, you need people driving your revenue. You need your sales team banging the phones, beating the bushes, and getting those orders.
So, in light of all the highs and lows that your sale team experiences on the field,
How can you keep your team motivated?
1. Let your sales team revise the commission plan
You read that right. When I started my first sales job, my commission plan was complicated. (if your salesman needs a calculator, a calendar, an excel spreadsheet to figure out their commission, it's too complicated! #smh) My commission percentage was reasonably high, but based on a lot of confusing quotas AND paid out quarterly. (mood killer!) I approached my boss about lowering (yes, lowering!) the percentage that I was paid out. And I wanted to be paid out monthly. (Check every Month = Motivated Salesman.) And I wanted to set my quota.
My boss agreed to the changes so my boss set my yearly goal, but then I set a monthly quota based on the yearly goal. If I made my monthly quota (that I had set for myself!) then my commission percentage went up 1 percent. 1 blimey percent, people. But Guess what?
- This eliminated all the confusion around commission
- Gave each contributor ownership over their book of business.
- and we were rewarded on a timely and frequent basis!
Best part about this?
Revenues & profits increased dramatically for our organization.
2. Review your Sales to Operations Process
You’ve probably heard your sales team complain about paperwork or about entering data into your pipeline system. Many organizations have a lengthy paperwork process that is extremely difficult to do when the sales team is out on the road, or when they are dashing from meeting to meeting.
Get with your top performers and find out what is difficult for them to get done. What about the process is inefficient? Does your team need a mobile CRM? Do they need help filling out paperwork? Do they need a mobile friendly app to sign contracts on? Any minute your team is working on internal processes, they are not in front of your prospects. So make it easy for them to sale by reviewing their processes with them and implementing changes for them! They will perform better, and you will be happier as well.
3. Overhaul The Weekly Micromanaging Meeting (cough, cough the sales meeting)
Most Salespeople hear the word NO all day long. They face copious amounts of rejection and pressure from your potential prospects. The last thing your team needs from ownership is to rant during the weekly meeting about their call volume, how they didn’t fill out their paperwork, or they aren’t scheduling enough meetings.
Use your meetings to give them practical advice and methods that will help them in their day to day.
- Is their call volume down? Research a list of potential prospects for your team, practice their cold call with them, and then see how they do over the week with the list you generated for them.
- Are they having issues closing the sale? Then list out their most common objections and rehearse scenarios where they can practice overcoming these objections. Practice with your team or your team will practice on your prospects.