I hear this phrase all too often “Motivate my team? I pay them!” Believe it or not, some sales managers believe that motivating their sales team is not a necessary practice. It’s no coincidence that these sales managers are often leading extremely dysfunctional sales teams. It’s an understatement to say that incorporating this type of philosophy is a huge mistake.
On the other side of the coin, many sales managers base every reward on cash incentives, bonuses, trips and prizes. While this may seem appealing to some, making all recognition monetary is another big mistake that many sales leaders make. We’ve been tricked to believe that these forms of recognition alone motivate members of our team to perform at their best. Don’t get sucked into this erroneous belief system!
If you want your team to turn over at a higher rate than average, you must provide recognition and encouragement as well as monetary reward.
Ensure that the recognition you provide is genuine and real. Your team will be able to sense when you are just encouraging them for the sake of hollow motivation. In order to build a top performing sales team and culture, you need to celebrate your team’s successes. ← Click To Tweet
A simple way to do this is to send an e-mail out to the team recognizing an individual or a deal that was recently won. In this e-mail you can showcase contributions and accomplishments, as well as discuss the process behind the win in order to motivate other team members to take similar action.
You can also consider talking about successes at your weekly sales meeting or your monthly, quarterly or annual company meeting. Giving public recognition to your team members will further encourage them to continue successful practices.
Giving positive and meaningful encouragement to members of your sales team costs no money but makes people proud to be a part of the company and your team. The end product of a proud team member is not only a more motivated seller, it’s also an individual who is more willing to assist other team members that may be struggling, and someone who will work harder to service your customers.
While you should continue to praise your team with monetary rewards, don’t allow money to be the sole motivator. Consistent and genuine praise, both personal and public, coupled with other forms of encouragement will create an ambitious, motivated seller who is willing to go the extra mile to create success for themselves, their fellow team members, and their company.
If you’re looking to become a better sales leader for not only your team, but for yourself as well…consider taking a look at The Sales Accelerator.
How else do you motivate your team to perform at their best?