How to Motivate Sales Teams

Motivated sales teams give you their full potential; but their motivation levels can fluctuate wildly throughout the year – which means their output does too. Sales is a career with the highest highs and the lowest lows, so keeping a team consistently motivated can be challenging for sales leaders. Here are three ways to engage your team for maximum motivation.

1. Focus on sales behaviours as well as sales numbers
   Behaviours include the daily activities and processes that lead to a sale. Reinforcing the right behaviours helps you build a healthy pipeline, follow a consistent sales process, develop a CRM and create customer insights. Identify the behaviours that drive sales, and build a program that communicates, trains, measures and rewards your people for demonstrating them.
    
2. Create frequent recognition opportunities
   Landing a sale is exhausting, and sales cycles can sometimes take months. It’s easy for sales people to feel disengaged at times throughout the process. Give them kudos for small wins, which are extremely powerful mood boosters. Small wins mean you can give recognition much more frequently (think about those steps-to-the-sale accomplishments).
    
3. Run a short-term incentive
   Short 30-, 60- or 90-day incentives refocus the entire team on an objective that has long-lasting effects. These will reinvigorate activity and inspire middle and lower performers (those who may not be tracking for the top annual rewards) to continuing achieving incremental goals regardless of their overall standing.