To motivate your sales force you need to eliminate demotivating factors.

Many sales managers play members of a sales team up against one another. In other words, it is in one’s interest that others perform poorly. This is done by recording sales, handing out prizes and making everyone aware of who is “the number one salesman”.

This is one way of motivating individual members, but there are those people who work better in teams than on their own. Thinking differently when it comes to motivating your sales force could increase productivity and, at the same time, sales.

Team Dynamic

Introducing a team dynamic to your strategy can become an important tactic and noticeably spike sales. Having a collective target for the whole sales team will ensure that everyone works their hardest to succeed.

It will be in no individual’s interest that others fail at their tasks, because if others fail they make the whole team look bad. People are very team orientated and will work hard to not disappoint. Just take a look at any team oriented reality series.

Having a top sales person to show others the ropes might not be a bad idea either.

Eliminate Demotivation

All possible forms of demotivation should be removed and the following are perfect examples of demotivating elements.

Too comfortable: When a sales people are too comfortable with their income and believe that they don't need much more. They will reach the target and nothing more.

Time wasting: Sales people can be wasting time on tasks they shouldn’t really be doing – like marketing, presentations, prospecting, proposals and so on. All of these little roles add up and become very intimidating and complex. Your sales person will perform average at all of these jobs because it’s not what he or she is good at. Sales people are good at selling, and, if you eliminate all of the other roles, they can excel at it. They can’t possibly win because of too much to do and not enough time to focus on selling, but at the same time they're expected to reach a target.

Negative employees: They justify each failure, drain energy and drag others down with them.

Unclear commission structure: An unclear commission structure can lead to a lack of trust which in turn leads to demotivation.

No feedback: People want acknowledgement for their successes as they have a basic need to be appreciated. Feedback is crucial and small successes should be praised.

Short-term thinking: Short-term thinking from the sales manager’s side is detrimental. The sales manager needs to be motivational and inspiring.

Dated tools: Your sales team should have access to good tools, i.e. Customer Relationship Management Systems and high quality sales collateral. They should be proud to show off their company. They should be able to think on their feet when in front of potential customers and if they don’t have the correct tools they won’t be able to do this.

Wrong training: Training is important but even more important is that the training is timeous and relevant. The sales person needs to be trained in such a way that confidence is boosted and he or she is able and willing to answer any question about the service or product at hand.

Out of touch: Sales managers shouldn’t be out of touch with the realities of the market place.

Eliminating the above elements will create a motivational and productive space for employees. This will allow your sales people to only follow hot leads and close deals – which is what they're best at.

Sound Idea Digital is a full service digital marketing agency that specialises in content marketing.

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