An ideal working environment can make all the difference between a good sales team and a great sales team. Everything from office culture to personnel interactions can affect how your sales team performs. To make sure you’re getting the most out of your team, you have to provide them with a working environment that encourages and rewards top performance. People in an ideal working environment tend to work harder, and put more pride into what they do. People in a poor working environment tend to be unmotivated, and don’t take a personal interest in the success of the overall sales team. By following these tips, you can ensure that your sales team has an ideal working environment that motivates them to do their best.

Keep Your Office (and Ears) Open

Nobody can evaluate your sales processes better than the ones who implement it every day. Your sales team will often have useful insights and ideas for improving sales numbers and improving office morale. If you don’t make yourself available to hear those ideas, you could be missing some easy ways to boost your sales figures. By keeping an open-door policy, and actually listening to the suggestions they make, you’ll get some great ideas for improving your numbers while also making your sales team feel important and valued. Just by listening, you’ll get better numbers and improved morale-that’s a great return on very little investment.

Celebrate Every Success

People like to have their accomplishments acknowledged-even the small ones. Place a bell or noisemaker in the office, and use it whenever a salesperson closes a deal. It may sound corny, but people do appreciate the attention. Don’t be afraid to celebrate even the smallest accomplishments, as your sales team will often use the heightened morale to push themselves to bigger accomplishments. Morale is one of your biggest assets-do whatever it takes to keep it high.

Foster Competition

People love friendly competition. Salespeople, who are typically more outgoing, enjoy it even more than most people. Use a whiteboard to track the sales in your office, and offer some kind of reward for the daily, weekly, and quarterly winners. The reward doesn’t need to be extravagant, just a token that shows you value their contribution and continued efforts. The winner will enjoy the accolades, while the runner-ups will have that much more reason to work even harder.

And Cooperation

A great way to change up the competition is by assigning your salespeople to teams. By changing the teams on a regular basis, all of your salespeople will eventually get a chance to work together. Not only is this a great way for them to get to know each other, but it also helps your salespeople view each other as part of a larger team. That way, even when working independently, they’ll remember to focus on the overall benefits to the company, instead of just individual accomplishments.

Make it About Them

Whatever methods you choose to create an ideal working environment, the focus needs to be on the sales team. Making things easier for yourself, at their expense, will end up hurting you in the long run. Much of what you choose to do will have to be based on your unique company culture, and the personalities of your salespeople. A great place to start is by simply asking your sales team what would work best for them. If you’re worried about them holding back, you could use an anonymous survey to get an overview of their general opinions about the working environment. Start with small changes, and then move on to larger changes if necessary. Creating the ideal working environment won’t happen overnight but, with a little effort and an open mind, it will happen.