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Take a minute to think about the attitudes of your sales staff members. Do your employees look fresh and energized, or tired and a little cranky? If you answered the latter, it may be time to give your sales environment a positive boost. Here are just a few ways to help get you started on creating a more positive, motivating environment for your sales team.
While the monetary aspect of a salesperson’s job is certainly important, money doesn’t always translate into high job satisfaction. Move the focus away from money and try uniting your sales team under your overall corporate mission.
Let's say your company is focused on delivering excellent customer service (customer service is your company's mission). During your next sales training session, instruct staff members to talk less about the price of your product and the features it includes. Instead, ask them to speak with clients about how your company can help them succeed. The mission will shine through and your clients will respond favorably rather than get annoyed, which can often be the case with a hard sell approach.
Sales can be stressful. As a manager, it is important to make your employees feel good about what they are doing. This can be achieved through regular, supportive check-ins. Set up weekly meetings with each of your employees to discuss strategy, how they are feeling about particular clients, any concerns they have, and ideas they would like to implement.
Keep your door open to show that you care. Increase communication with your sales staff and watch them work harder and feel more invested in their jobs.
It is important to have well-defined goals when motivating your sales team. Even better than goal setting, though, is focusing on specific behaviors that will help them achieve their desired goal.
Take this scenario as an example: Each member of your staff is tasked with bringing in at least $15,000 in sales each month. Instead of giving them that goal and letting them run with it, offer suggestions on how they could get there. Maybe that means they need to make 50 client calls per day, or talk with potential leads for at least four hours a day.
Offer these tips and then let your team find their own path. Empower them to be creative and then share their successful behaviors with the rest of the team during sales meetings. This will help inspire others on methods to meet metrics.
The numbers from last month are in and instead of netting $15,000 in sales, one of your employees brings in $30,000. You are elated and your shareholders are over the moon, but how does the rest of your sales staff feel? Chances are, some may feel a little down.
Transform this situation into a positive learning experience for staff members that came in under their numbers by focusing on exactly what your rock star staffer did to achieve such a high number. Did that person get in at 7 a.m. every morning to start making calls? Did he or she send hand-written thank you cards to every client and potential lead?
Call a meeting with your entire staff after something like this happens. Don’t focus on shortcomings, but instead highlight your star’s achievements through the lens of behaviors they did to reach their goal. This focus will help inspire the rest of your employees to follow suit and will give them a navigable roadmap for sales success.
Yaniv Masjedi is the vice president of marketing at Nextiva, a leading provider of cloud-based, unified communication services. Yaniv manages the firm's marketing and branding efforts by working to create strategies that drive awareness, strengthen the Nextiva brand and share the company's unique customer-centric culture (dubbed "Amazing Service"). His responsibilities also include brand management, demand generation, advertising, marketing communications, nurturing programs and thought leadership.
