The lifeblood of a successful business is a motivated and capable sales team. Without a great sales team, the growth a business experiences will become stagnant. In many cases, an underperforming sales team will be to blame for shrinking profit margins.
If you are currently dealing with issues caused by an underperforming sales team, it is time to do something about it. Effectively motivating your sales team is the only way to get out of this slump. The following are some things you can do to provide your underperforming sales team with more motivation.
Get Serious About Sales Enablement
Identifying the root cause of sales team performance issues is the first step in fixing them. In many cases, the lack of training is the root cause of these problems. Members of your sales team will struggle to win over potential customers if they have limited knowledge of the products/services being sold by your business.
This is why you need to work on defining sales enablement strategies for your team members. Sales enablement provides content, coaching, technology and training to members of your sales team. This information is crucial when trying to put your best foot forward with a potential customer.
The more information you can provide during the onboarding process, the easier it will be for members of your sales team to thrive. This training will also provide team members with in-depth information about the products/services being sold. They can then use this knowledge to answer questions or address concerns from customers.
Create a Sales Contest
Over the past few years, businesses around the United States have found it increasingly harder to meet annual sales goals. While this is due in part to the global pandemic, these profitability problems can also be caused by an unmotivated sales team. If you notice that your sales team is starting to lose steam, then you need to find a way to boost morale.
Offering high-performing sales team members a chance to win money or other desirable prizes is a good way to accomplish this goal. You’ll be surprised just how competitive your sales team gets when a contest is going on. Before you announce this sales content, reach out to members of your staff for some feedback. This feedback can help you determine the types of prizes your team will be excited about.
Publicly Reward Hard-Working Employees
As a business owner, you have to provide your sales team with the tools they need to turn a sales lead into an actual customer. If you want to give your sales team some incentive to raise monthly sales figures, then you need to publicly reward high-performing team members. Setting up a weekly top-seller award and announcing the winner to your entire team is a good idea.
Asking these high-performing employees to provide other team members with tips is a wise move. By doing this, you can provide low-performing employees with a roadmap to success.
Make Sure Performance Evaluations Are Handled Properly
As a business owner, you need to collect data on all of your salespeople. This data will help you identify who is having a hard time closing deals with potential customers. Routine performance evaluations are a great way to speak with employees about what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong.
You need to make sure that your employees don’t feel like they’re being attacked during these evaluations. Being nice and approachable throughout these evaluations can help you avoid problems.
As you can see, there are a number of things you can do to motivate an underperforming sales team.
