Every business owner knows that if you’re in the business of selling a service, sales is a crucial component to staying afloat. Your sales team is the link between your business and the public – your potential customers, so you want to make sure that your team is representing your business at its very best. As we gear up to head into the New Year, here are 10 tips to prep your sales team for the most successful year yet for your business.

1. Keep the ideas for outbound calls rolling

Make sure your team is making calls and drumming up interest for your company on a regular basis. Even if conversions happen in the New Year, keep everyone focused on calling new potential clients.

2. Come up with seasonal sales incentive programs  

Provide extra motivational perks throughout the week such as the first person to convert five sales gets a gift card to Starbucks. 

3. Develop team-based strategies

Try and get everyone involved so that your sales team is working together and supporting each other. Set team goals for the day (more every few hours) if you’re really focused on hitting a certain number.

4. Give surprise bonuses for hitting goals

At our office, if a team member hits a personal best, or a number he/she has been working toward, we like to give him/her a couple of lottery tickets.

5. Encourage communication

Communication from other team members helps keep the creativity flowing so ask your sales team to share what’s working for them.

6. Strategize

Sometimes the best ideas come from within the team. Gather everyone for a quick brainstorming session and have the team brainstorm outbound sales plans and ideas.

7. Reflect in meetings

When you hold meetings with your team, have everyone reflect on the successful strategies from the last few months and build from there. We devote a lot of our sales meeting time just to reflecting on what’s happened since our previous meeting.

8. Look to past years

Look at the numbers from the prior year to set strong goals and be clear about expectations. Previous years and the sales numbers therein are more reliable than just picking a random goal number out of nowhere.

9. Don’t set ridiculous goals

It’s important to set goals, but setting goals that are too far out there will only leave you with a discouraged team, and one that will feel less motivated to hit their next goal.

10. Remind your team of the importance of having good communication skills

A large part of sales is creating a connection over the phone with a customer. You want them to know that your team is made up of people, too. A good conversation will help that to shine through.

Get 100 more sales tips for 2014 with the free ebook Salesforce below.

</a