Ever struggle with staying motivated? If you told the truth and you have a Sales Manager, what does he or she do to help you or hurt you?
Tracking sales activity and projection data is absolutely necessary for the executive and sales management teams, it does little motivate the sales team. Managing sales talent is harder than selling or trying to dig yourself out of a sales slump.
Certainly, sales people need to be aware of their opportunities and activity numbers to focus and improve and stretch. What creates the activity and resulting sales is the salesperson’s motives and purpose. Every minute decision and subsequent action humans take is based on expected pain or gain.
Julia Marrocco on the Pumping Mental Iron Group Blog lists several good ideas to keep moral and focus on what you and your hunters want. I’ve summarized some of her comments to support 6 powerful ways I’ve discovered to keep a team inspired.
- Share Best Practices. Whether other star performers work for you or not, bring them in to present and share their success to your team. And if you can’t get a stud to come to you, send your team out to them at that conference, networking group or training. As Julia put’s it, "Show them it’s possible. Figure out which past or present performers they will relate to most, introduce them, put them together or at least share the stories of how the others did it so they can see it can be done."
- Create Mentor Teams. "Shadowing" is best to see attitude and behaviors in action. It’s one thing to learn about best practices in conversation, but seeing them as they happen can make a difference.
- Routinely Share Dreams, Goals and Purpose. Encourage individual and collaborative goal setting. Start with asking each sales team member to list out their dreams and then the steps to make their dreams come true. Allow each sales person to openly create and build a picture of their purpose both professionally and personally.
- Light up the Competitive Fire. Contests to achieve certain daily or hourly Key Performance Measurements or even unrelated to sales performance. The key is fun and acheivable. Sometimes the achievement of some task, ultimately unimportant, recognized by the group, can be the catalyst to inspire and boost morale.
- Role Play. Practice, practice, practice. Scripts work. Top notch, accomplished salepeople still spend 15 minutes to 30 minutes a day tuning their axe before show time. Wonder why they’re the best?
The best place to start at anytime of the day to reset attitudes is with gratitude. Start by you and your team listing what you have, like, and appreciate about yourselves and each other.
As a trainer who teaches sales people to set appointments for each other, the challenge for most clients to consistently keep a high level of daily activity is constant.
Amazingly, when even a marginal sales person learns how to strategically promote an Advisor Alliance partner’s services, the pyschological blocks of fear of rejection and lack of credibilty go away. In fact, the process of "selling" as in, "convincing someone to want or need your services and agree to move forward," is erased. When initiated properly, the process of simply setting appointments for other salespeople is easy. Prospects simply say, "yes."
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