Sales motivation influencers

By Robert Gonye

FOR the best sales results, you need to have a highly motivated team bringing their A-game, day in and dayout. Often, it’s up to sales managers to make sure their team maintains this positive and results-driven attitude through sales motivation.

What Is Sales Motivation

Sales motivation is one of the key categories of the sales performance wheel which focuses on sellers’ attitudes, leaderships ability to create and sustain selling energy and the culture with respect to selling. The key is to find out what motivates each individual and then align their goals.

Fundamentals to increase sales motivation

Companies commonly focus on compensation, bonuses, and incentives to get top performance out of their sales team. Yet sellers bring their own intrinsic motivation to their jobs, and it’s up to the organisation to tap into them. So how exactly can you increase sales motivation for yourself and the rest of the team?

Here are the core areas I recommend you focus on:

1. Culture and Company

We’ve seen organisations where selling is respected—where other business units and employees consider the sales team vital. We’ve seen organisations in which sellers enjoy tremendous support from leadership.

We’ve also seen the total opposite.

Ultimately, if you want to maximise sales motivation, your culture and company needs to support sellers as much as possible. Anyone who has worked in an organisation with an unsupportive, chaotic, or toxic culture understands why. It’s difficult to stay motivated when you don’t believe in the place you work, or your employer doesn’t seem to believe in you.

On the other hand, a supportive culture and company can give sellers exactly the purpose they need. When sales leaders tap into this purpose, their sellers often: dedicate themselves to action plans, strengthen their sense of ownership for achievement and find the motivation to persevere in the face of obstacles

Imagine an army of sellers who don’t just sell because it’s their job; they sell because their own sense of purpose is driving them to reach their potential. They know their company and the people around them have their back.

2. Management

If a seller doesn’t have a fire in their belly, it’s very hard to light one. But if a seller does have that fire—the right manager can help the flame burn bright.

Sales managers can set the stage for seller success by:

• Help sellers see how they can achieve challenging goals: Work with sellers to define goals and build action plans to meet them. Then hold sellers accountable to those actions on a weekly basis.
  • Foster a supportive culture: Enable sellers with the tools, materials, resources, and support they need to win.
  • Create maximum selling energy: Celebrate successes, keep lines of communication open, and help sellers’ fire burn bright.
  • Set challenging but achievable goals: Challenging goals are more motivating. Be sure sales goals and targets are challenging, yet achievable.

In the end, sales management is responsible for creating an environment that motivates its sellers.

3. Intrinsic Motivators

Conventional wisdom holds that sellers are motivated by money. Sellers can be motivated by many intrinsic factors, such as:

• Recognition
  • Advancement
  • Winning (not necessarily related to money)
  • Personal development

4. Execution

Execution is affected by many factors. There’s a person’s talent, skills, and intrinsic motivations. There’s operations and enablement. Defining the right goals and strategies is a critical step toward maximizing sales energy, focus, and engagement—essential ingredients for better sales execution.

5. Value

The differences between companies that are value-focused and those that aren’t are the big sell out. One of the most surprising correlations is the relationship between value and sales motivation. Companies that have a true focus on value for buyers are much more likely to have highly motivated sales forces.

Perhaps nothing is more demotivating to sellers as needing to hit target and selling as much as possible regardless of whether it adds value to buyers. That’s not to say that having a target isn’t important. Companies with achievable sales goals are more likely to have motivated sellers. But having goals alone isn’t enough.

Too many organisations focus on motivation directly. Focus on value and you’ll unleash the sales motivation you’re after. In fact, Value-Driving Sales Organisations are 2.5x more likely to say their managers and leaders are effective at creating and sustaining maximum selling energy from sellers and they’re 2.2x more likely to say their culture drives and supports sellers’ motivation to succeed.

Vibrant, proactive sales organisations have value at the core.

In conclusion, Sales Motivation Goes Deeper than Money. The organisations stuck in the old “throw more money at it” mindset are now finding that true sales motivation requires a more comprehensive approach. The numbers don’t lie: organisations with an immature approach to sales motivation tend to experience poor performance and high turnover.

Remember: purpose and value. If you want to boost sales motivation, you need to look beyond changing compensation and the challenges that come with it. Instead, work towards building a value-focused sales organisation that gives sellers real purpose.

Robert Gonye is a Business Growth Expert and Influencer. A Sales Strategist and author of “Sales Made Simple workbook on winning new business “.  He writes in his capacity. The views given herein are solely for information purposes.Robertgonye2@gmail.com ,whatsapp : 0715023256