How to boost the morale of your sales team
Need to boost the morale of your sales team? Here are some ideas that will help.
Working in sales isn’t always easy. The rejections can take a toll on anyone, and lead to lower morale. Which in turn makes it harder to make the next call – and hurts the odds of closing a sale.
On the flip side, high morale can help people run through their lists without giving up. And a better mood increases the odds that they’ll close a sale.
So how can you boost the morale and engagement of your sales team – and improve their efficiency and results? Here are some ideas.
Let sales reps focus on what matters
If you want people to have the freedom to perform at their best, don’t ask them to multitask. If they’re on a sales call, let them focus on that call instead of pulling their attention away from a prospect to answer a low priority email.
Don’t distract them when they’re preparing for meetings, and ban cell phones from meetings so that their performance isn’t impacted by interruptions. Don’t interrupt coaching sessions or product reviews either.
Instead, hire people you trust and let them dedicate their attention to the task on hand. This will increase their focus and performance, and decrease the distractions that create unnecessary stress.
Give your team downtime
If you want to get the best from your team, don’t overwork them. Instead, give them proper downtime to recover and rigour, ready to hit their sales again refreshed and revived.
Allocate break times throughout the day, and fi someone has particularly rude or tough client, give them any time they need to regain their composure.
And when people are home from work or off on vacation, let them focus on their own lives, and resist calling or texting them with questions. When people have time to relax, they’ll return to work with more energy and enthusiasm.
Give clear feedback, for better and for worse
Managers know the importance of giving recognition for hard work and success. However, that can’t be all you do. Your employees need constant feedback, both good and bad.
With honest, kind feedback on both how they’re succeeding, but also the areas they need to improve on, or mistakes they need to prevent happening again, they can take control of their performance and empowered to make any changes they need.
They’ll also know how well they’re doing, and won’t worry whether they’re matching up to expectations or not. It stops office rumours and fear mongering too.
So address any issues or performance declines as soon as you notice them, and handle them in an upfront, empowering manner – don’t wait until an employee’s annual review to spring criticism on them.
Managers should be open to feedback, too. So ask your team members tell you about any challenges they’re having unlocking a new market segment or targeting a new demographic. They may need better training or more resources and feeling like they’re set up to fail will kill morale.
If you need to, bring in training companies like Nazca Services to analyse your team’s performance and discover the real reasons why they aren’t achieving their goals.
Let them be creative
So many work problems can be solved by encouraging creative thinking at work. And employees who have permission to try new things and experiment will become more engaged, and own their successes.
So encourage your team to find creative solutions to problems, and to think freely about any improvements they’d like to see happen. If you wish you can ask them to get management approval first and ask them to document what they did. Then you will have hard data on great ideas, and replicate those improvements tin future.
For sales employees, this can include new sales tactics, changes to marketing materials, and new approaches to dealing with customers.
Help them to grow
One way to improve morale is to help people see that they have a future with your company. Those working toward a promotion are the most engaged, and those who expect to be promoted one day will be among your most enthusiastic staff.
That doesn’t mean that you need to promise to promote everyone to improve morale, however. Just showing people that you are invested in them and their success can boost their loyalty and efforts. Training programs and regular improvement targets and rewards can also encourage success.
Have performance standards – and enforce them
You can even take this one step further by encouraging everyone to improve through salary raises and bonuses for employees who go above and beyond at work, or who meet set criteria.
However, you cannot maintain morale if you don’t enforce minimum standards as well. Don’t be afraid of letting go of people who don’t match up to your minimum targets. And pay attention to any rotten apples whose negativity can taint an entire team.
You need to ensure your teams are positive and engaged, and know they’re not just supported and encouraged, but that the best is expected of them – and is appreciated and rewarded.
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