8 years ago
February 21, 2017

3 Tips for Motivating Your Sales Team toward Better Performance

Having an effective sales team involves successfully motivating each and every member. Here are three tips to making this happen.

Rhys Metler

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When it comes to hiring people for a job in sales, many companies experience a fairly high turnover rate. As a company, this can be painful to your bottom line. There are costs to hiring someone, as well as the time they require to be trained in their new position. It’s usually three months before you start to get the results from salespeople that you would expect.

Part of ensuring that you have a sales team made up of satisfied, effective employees involves successfully motivating each and every member. Here are three tips to making this happen.

1. Approach Management from the Ground Level

As YFSMagazine points out, it’s difficult to “be empathetic, lead your team, and make strategic decisions without critical information about what is happening on the ground”. Communicating with your team about challenges they’re encountering or problems they’re having can help lead to solutions before small issues become frustrating reasons worth leaving the company for.

2. Don’t Always Offer Flat Commission Rates for Sales Jobs

The best team performances don’t always occur when everyone is incentivized the same way. Take to heart the phrase “different strokes for different folks” and come up with a variety of ways to manage and encourage your team. Success magazine points out that, past a certain point, a bonus might not feel like much. What’s $1,000 when you make $100,000? But a year’s worth of once-a-week gourmet meals can be a different way to offer value. Unlike money, it’s also a treat that will serve as a constant reminder that working hard and landing sales pays off, and feels good.

3. Don’t Just Encourage the End Result

It’s easy to see sales as an end game. Reward closing sales, and you’ll get employees who make more sales. However, it makes sense to encourage employees to implement beginning pitches as well, especially because it can feel like less pressure while still leading to the results you seek. One study by LevelEleven showed that incentivizing certain product pitches did lead to the pitch being included more—which led to better sales for the sales reps who pitched the most. Incentives can be a good way to remind salespeople of what, exactly, it is that you want them to sell.

How would you inspire someone with a job in sales? Let us know in the comments.

Rhys Metler

Rhys is a tenacious, top performing Senior Sales Recruiter with 15+ years of focused experience in the Digital Media, Mobile, Software, Technology and B2B verticals. He has a successful track record of headhunting top performing sales candidates for some of the most exciting brands in North America. He is a Certified Recruitment Specialist (CRS) and has expert experience in prospecting new business, client retention/renewals and managing top performing sales and recruitment teams. Rhys enjoys spending quality time with his wife, son, and daughters, BBQing on a hot summer day and tropical vacations.

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