Motivating sales: 10 things you need to keep your sales team stoked!
Looking for ways to motivate a sales team? From dashboards to gamification, this post explains how a smart mix of information, collaboration, and technology can help inspire better results.
This post was first shared on the ModernBiz Blog. To read the original blog, click sur ce site.
Of all the things you might do as a business manager and/or owner, motivating a sales team to chase and close opportunities has got to be among the toughest. It takes a lot more than the promise of steak knives and a commission to make a modern sales team effective. So, let’s look at the big picture with 10 things you need to keep your sales team stoked.
10 ways to motivate sales
- Good leads!
- Fairness
- Leadership
- Training
- Bragging rights
- Onboarding
- Sales coaching
- Sales tools
- Autonomy
- Technology
-
Good leads!
First of all, your sales people need good leads to work. So, what’s the secret to generating lots of high-quality leads? In my experience, there are no real shortcuts. Therefore, you probably need to make an ongoing investment in high-quality original marketing and PR to create quality leads. That means:
- A modern, robust, mobile-friendly website, complete with a contact form
- Company pages at the appropriate social networks, like LinkedIn or Twitter
- Original content, like blog posts or photos, that you can create and share
- Search and/or display online advertising at popular engines like Bing
- Lead generation through “gated” published content, like ebooks and webinars
- Marketing your products/services at trade shows and other events
- Sending out organization announcements in the media and blogs
-
Fairness
Sales people want to work within a system that’s honest, transparent and, above all, fair. Sensitive to stereotypes about them, these professionals look for respect and integrity at work. Once you define your compensation program, they expect you to stick to it—not change it. Because of that sensitivity, think through your comp plan carefully. Make sure you’re comfortable with the numbers.
Tip: Protect your interests. Before you put a new compensation program in place, ask your accountant and lawyer to review it.
-
Leadership
Teams need strong leadership, so consider investing in a strategic resource—like a sales director or VP of sales. A great sales leader will know how to bring out the best in your team and can implement management best practices. Look for someone with natural charisma, a record of meaningful accomplishments, and the emotional IQ to inspire results.
-
Training
No matter how experienced, talented, or bright the sales person, make formal product and/or service training mandatory. Don’t just focus your training on product features or service policies, either. Tell them all about your brand, your vision, and, above all, your customers. The more a salesperson knows about their prospects’ needs and wants, the better they can sell.
Tip: You can train using video conferencing, elearning, and similar online training technologies. You don’t have to train in a classroom to do it well.
-
Bragging rights
Since most sales people (like most professionals) love recognition for their achievements, recognize them! From good old-fashioned sales competitions with public leader boards to sales gamification systems and tools, look for ways to give shout-outs and kudos. At the bare minimum, send out internal emails that recognize individual and team accomplishments.
-
Onboarding
Hiring new people? Even in competitive sales environments, a new person should feel welcome and empowered to sell. Ideally, you can give them a tour of your space, make intros, assign them a desk, schedule training, brief them on security, and network their devices—all on the first day. Some companies even prepare little welcome kits, complete with business cards.
-
Sales coaching
Because we put so much emphasis on compensation, professional development as a motivator can easily go overlooked. Look again. If you see a sales person with potential, offer them coaching—either as a training function or an incentive for hitting goals. Even veterans can benefit from one-on-one coaching with training specialists.
-
Sales tools
Sales teams love tools that they can use to help engage prospects. These tools include: discovery questions, scripts, PowerPoint presentations, case studies, reviews/testimonials, budget worksheets, contracts, promotional offers, and reward and recognition programs.
Engagement tools like PointDrive can help sales teams pack, share, and track customer content in a quick, professional, and appealing way. They can replace clumsy emails with a personalized content experience for customers that looks great on any device (phone, tablet, or desktop).
If you’re not sure where to start, you can ask your sales team about tools they have succeeded with in the past.
-
Autonomy
Speaking of what they want, more autonomy may appeal to senior sales people. They might want the independence to run their own office, open a new line of business, or perhaps come on board as a managing partner. In the years ahead, baby boomer small business owners (almost half of all Canadian small businesses) struggling with succession planning might want to consider passing their businesses on to a top performer.
-
Technology
Most of all, let’s not forget about technology! A whole new generation of cloud-based solutions can transform how your sales team engages, sells, and closes deals.
Office 365 -> Get the best productivity tools, like Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Excel, plus great services, like business-class email. And, it works across all platforms and devices!
Video calls ->Avoid the cost and hassle of business trips by making calls and presentations by video. Skype for Business (part of Office 365 Business Essentials & Business Premium) even allows you to share desktops.
CRM -> Every modern sales team needs a CRM (customer relationship management) platform like Dynamics 365 for Sales to track, organize, rate, analyze, and close leads efficiently.
Marketing integration -> A platform like Dynamics 365 for Marketing allows you to get a 360 degree view of customers and to manage multiple nurturing campaigns.
Customer engagement -> a tool like PointDrive makes sharing and tracking content with customers easy and has an add in for LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Dynamics 365.
The post Motivating sales: 10 things you need to keep your sales team stoked appeared first on ModernBiz: Microsoft Canada’s Small & Medium Business Blog.
The ModernBiz Blog helps Canada’s small and medium-sized business get the most value from modern tech. At Microsoft, we believe passionately that you don’t have to be technical to get modern technology working for you. And so we’re offering informative and topical articles, news, offers, success stories and more, all created and curated for real, everyday business people like you. Read more of our posts on the ModernBiz Blog.
Je souhaite obtenir des nouvelles par courriel de Microsoft et de ses sociétés affiliées à propos de produits, de services, d'événements, de nouvelles solutions, de conseils et d'offres exclusives. Digital Main Street demande votre consentement au nom de Microsoft Canada. Vous pouvez vous désabonner à tout moment. Microsoft Canada Inc. 1950, boul. Meadowvale, Mississauga (Ontario) L5N 8L9. Énoncé de confidentialité Microsoft
