Managing a sales team can be tough. As a supervisor, it can be easy to go through the traditional route of giving a quota for each of your team members. Quotas, however helpful they may be, has a potential of working counterintuitively because they can stress you out as well as your whole team.
According to sales expert Cyrus Baseghi, there are other alternatives that can help motivate your team other than providing quotas. In this post, he will be sharing his insight on how to get your sales group flying high with their job performance.
Cyrus Baseghi Gives Advice For Motivating Your Sales Team Without Stressing Them or Yourself Out
Build trust within your team.
Team members will only perform as good as their leader. In order for your team to get motivated, you need to build rapport towards them. This rapport can help establish trust, which makes them feel like they’re not just in it simply “to get the job done”. Rather, they have enough self-esteem to think that they’re part of something valuable.
Some tips to build trust include:
- Finding commonalities between you and your team members.
- Doing what you said you would—rewarding good performance and reprimanding problematic actions.
- Showing consistency on your personal and professional character.
Give rewards for those who meet goals, and even more rewards for those who go above and beyond.
According to Cyrus Baseghi, this is one of the best things he did in order to help managers motivate their respective sales teams. It is not enough for you to provide incentives for those who accomplish their regular goals—those who have the capacity to break records should be given more rewards as well.
With this kind of system in place, there will be an atmosphere of motivation. If you set the bar higher for your team, it is more than likely that they will meet their assigned goals on point.
Understand your team’s needs.
Motivating your sales team is a two-sided coin. On the first side are quotas and external rewards. On the other side, there is what we call ‘internal motivation’. These are your team members’ personal and professional goals, and the things they think they need in order to succeed.
You can hold a meeting or an open forum where the floor is open for each team member to lay out issues that hinder them from having sales. Alternatively, you can open the discussion on ideas they may have to boost sales. This is a great opportunity to brainstorm about how you can improve your performance as a whole group.
Show your team that they are valued.
Showing appreciation for your team always goes a long way. You can offer words of encouragement, resources to improve their skills, or even a rest and relaxation retreat—anything that can make them feel appreciated.
Your sales team are the people who have direct contact with your clients, so it is crucial that you show them how much their work is valued. This has a trickle-down effect—how you treat your team will be proportional to how your team treats your clients.
These are simple strategies you can apply to motivate your sales team. By taking these tips to heart, you can provide an encouraging environment while boosting their intrinsic desire to perform well
