Keeping your sales team motivated is paramount to the success of your organization. It goes beyond sharing motivational quotes and hanging up quirky posters on the wall.

You see, sales is not for the faint-hearted. Sheer grit, the willingness to seize opportunities and a relentless drive are what make a great salesperson!

Having said that, a recent study showed that only 60% of sales reps met their quota – so what’s stopping them?

While outdated CRMs and poor time management could be partly blamed, most of this is the result of low morale and lack of motivation. As humans, we have all developed the trait to become high-rated performers.

In the pursuit of attaining such heights, motivational techniques cannot be ignored!

What can you do as a leader to supercharge your sales team’s productivity?

Let’s make one thing clear here – getting your team excited about the financial goals of your organization may not always work in the long run.

Being focused on numbers and spreadsheets will not elicit feelings of owning the brand or wanting to sell the product – you need to get your team excited about the product that they are selling.

You need to motivate your sales team with better reasons than just receiving a big fat paycheck at the end of the month. Drop the transactional approach and focus on getting your employees engaged about the brand.

Now that we’ve understood what not to do – let’s skip right to the good stuff and check out how you can motivate your sales team.

15 surefire ways to motivate your sales team to succeed in 2021

As a person who is leading a sales team, it is your job to ensure that your workforce is bringing their best to the table.

There are two ways to go about it – you can either focus on sharpening their skillset or find ways to boost their morale and motivate them.

The latter is always easier said than done. Why?

Every person has a different reason to be motivated. As a leader, you need to identify what makes your teammates tick and what drives them to do their best!

Knowing this is what will help you devise the perfect motivation strategy for your team’s success. 

  1. Start by building trust

Undoubtedly, trust is the main factor that binds your team together!

Trust should be woven into the core of everything you do as a team. If your team trusts you and believes that you have their best interests in mind, not only will they be driven but they will be willing to go that extra mile for the organization.

When there is mutual trust, your sales team will be open to suggestions on how they can achieve their goals better and also have open conversations about the challenges they face day in and out.

How do you build this trust? By having constant engagements with your team and ensuring there is transparency across workflows and processes within the organization.

  1. Be a mentor, not a boss

As a leader, you need to be approachable. If your sales team lives in constant fear, it will trickle down to their performance and affect their targets adversely.

Leading a team can be daunting, you need to be really good at managing people. The step towards doing it right is to not see yourself as a boss but as a mentor who is there to guide the team and lead them from the front.

As a mentor, you can win your sales team’s loyalty by treating them with respect. Instead of ruling over them, find ways to teach them skills that can be valuable for a lifetime. 

  1. Drive them with purpose

To boost sales, it’s important that your team is on the same page as you are! Be very clear to set out the ‘whys’ and the ‘hows’ of the product or service that they need to sell. Lay out the big picture before them and tell them what they are working towards.

The secret of a sales team’s success is about having them connected to the end goal.

So for your next team huddle, instead of talking to them about what they should achieve, tell them about the purpose behind those sales goals that you have set for them.

  1. Set weekly and monthly achievable goals

Talking about goals, motivating your sales team also means that you need to make sure that you are setting goals that can be achieved! 

Achieving goals and meeting targets act as a huge boost! When it comes to setting goals – before you pick your quarterly targets, have weekly and monthly goals in place.

This is a better technique to ensure that your sales workforce is on track with the targets set for the end of the quarter.

Weekly goals: Now these are more short-term in nature and need to be achieved with a proper plan and a clear set of tasks!

Monthly goals: These goals are often tied to incentive plans or commission structures. The monthly targets should be broken into 4 parts that can be achieved every week.

  1. Celebrate every win 

That’s right, it’s not always about the big wins – make sure to celebrate the smaller achievements too.

A big part of building motivation is appreciation! Never shy away from showing your sales team that you care about them.

Call out specific achievements and don’t hold back on those compliments!

Public recognition and appreciation play a pivotal role in motivating a sales team.

Have an appreciation day and recognize the top performer of the month. Remember to appreciate the ones who are finding it hard to meet their targets too – your appreciation as a leader can go a long way in pushing your team to do their best.

  1. Foster efficiency within the team

Ensure that your sales team’s daily tasks are helping them achieve their end goals.

Get this – close to 71% of salespersons say that they spend way too much of their time on data entry.

If they are caught up in routine tasks that are just taking up a lot of their time, then as a leader you need to step in and remove unnecessary tasks so that your team can focus on what’s more important.

Cancel unnecessary meetings, streamline processes and automate manual reporting work to build a happy and productive work environment for your sales team.

  1. Promote collaboration and not competition

It’s important to make it clear to your sales team that competition should not be within the team but with the competitors in the market.

Healthy competition is always good but more often than not, salespersons cross over and build negative sentiments with their teammates, in the name of competition.

Instead, invoke feelings of collaboration within the team by having off-sites and training camps. It’s imperative that the entire team invests heavily into building a collaborative work culture.

  1. Win your team with emotion

Nothing sells like emotion and that’s the hook you need to use to help your sales force perform better.

Emotional intelligence matters in sales. In fact, 58% of professional success can be attributed to the emotional IQ of the individual. It is the ability to easily pick up, perceive and manage the feelings of others. 

Salespersons who are able to put themselves in their customers’ shoes can know exactly what their customers are looking for and be able to then find the perfect solution for their problems.

Train your sales team to connect with customers on an emotional level and bring in a more personalized sales approach.

  1. Set clear expectations

Another important factor that will help in motivating your sales team to excel is in laying out clear expectations. Confusion and uncertainty within the team can cause anxiety, frustration and bring down the general morale of the team.

How can you avoid this? Be very clear in laying out goals and communicating the expectations from your sales team. Regularly check in with your team to ensure that they know what is expected of them.

  1.  Get your team involved

Motivating a sales team also means that you need to make them feel that they are a part of the bigger mission. Encourage every team member to take up ownership of their task and ask them to step forward with ideas and initiatives that will help the business.

Trust them with their plans and give them a chance to apply their ideas in getting more customers.

Find ways to reward ideas that result in business growth. This can be done with a sales incentive structure, a sales contest for idea generation or a commission system.

  1.  Tread with transparency

Ensure that you maintain transparency within the team. From the strategies to increase sales to giving them a clear view of how their incentives are calculated – be clear and transparent about your goals and intentions as an organization.

When you show them that you are open in your dealings, your team will be motivated to go out there and give it their best shot.

  1.  Money Matters

While some prefer recognition, some would rather go for the rewards.

Monetary rewards, commission structures and sales incentives are essential in keeping your team happy and on their feet!

A great way to keep your sales team motivated is to get them to decide how they would like to be rewarded – this not only makes them feel involved but giving them what they want can get them to perform better.

Trust us when we say this – a proven way to rev up your sales team’s performance is to have a great sales compensation plan in place.

  1.  More rewards

Don’t just stick to monetary rewards – find ways to offer great non-monetary benefits as well.

Wellness schemes, medical insurance, daycare services, paid leaves and vacations are something that most organizations offer their employees today.

Go the extra mile and have regular team lunches and dinners, team outings, barbeque parties, karaoke nights – the list is endless. The point is to find ways to get your team together outside of work. This not only helps with motivating your team but also builds a good camaraderie within the team.

  1.  Prep them for the remote work culture

Keeping your sales team motivated in these unprecedented times can be challenging no doubt.

With most organizations transitioning to remote selling, a lot of sales teams have had to make drastic changes to their processes. It has not been an easy transition for many – with almost 40% of the sales leaders admitting to missing their targets in 2020.

This makes it even more important to gear your team up to work in today’s remote world. What can you do to help?

Along with helping them rewire their working style and realign their strategies, ensure that as a leader you connect with the teams regularly. Get down to exploring new opportunities and possibilities within the remote framework and help your team adjust to the new normal.

  1.  Lead with passion

It all boils down to how passionate and charged up you are as a leader about the goals and sales targets that you set out for the team.

You need to lead from the front and set an example of how motivated you want your team to be. Don’t wait for an issue to creep up to get involved – be there for your team from day one.

The sales managers that lead by example are the most effective in motivating their sales teams. Being in the sales field can get very hectic, so it is important to watch out for your team and never miss a chance to cheer them on!

Final thoughts

If you’re looking to power up your team to do better, then you must give these motivational techniques a shot – you’ll be surprised to see how well you can set your team up for success in 2021.

If you’re looking to find ways to design commission and incentive structures for your sales team, then you’ve come to the right place. Sign up on QuotaCal today and find the best ways to keep your sales reps rewarded and motivated.