How to Keep Your Sales Team Happy and Productive

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A happy sales team is also a productive sales team, so it makes sense to do everything you can to improve morale and encourage their efforts.

Here’s a look at some of the tactics you can use to enhance sales team job satisfaction and empower them to operate optimally. Doing so should benefit the entire business.

 

Pay commissions promptly

The longer it takes for salespeople to receive their commission payments, the less motivated they will feel. This means that unless you pay out incentives quickly, morale will suffer.

There are also rules and regulations related to payroll matters to adhere to. As such, paying commissions promptly is sensible from several angles.

Make your sales targets reasonable

While setting a sky-high sales target might seem like a good motivational strategy, it could end up having the opposite effect. This is because when employees fall short of overly-ambitious goals, they will feel inadequate.

A better option is to keep your targets attainable.  That way you can ensure that reps receive the encouragement they need to meet and exceed sales goals.

Keep your sales team up to date with product changes

You must keep your sales team in the loop on the latest updates and alterations made to your products and services. If not, they could be caught out by customers who ask questions which they cannot answer.

As such it is crucial to give salespeople the very latest details as soon as any changes are made. This applies to the features of a product, and also to general information about your company that may have changed.

Avoid over-hiring

A bit of healthy competition between members of your sales team is no bad thing, but this can become a drag if rivalries are effectively being generated artificially through over-hiring.

If there are too many salespeople working side by side, a few successful individuals can leave others feeling marginalized. This will cause disillusion to spread, and create rifts across the department. Instead, make your team compact and lean, and spirits will remain high.

Keep admin work to a minimum

Everyone knows that paperwork is a pain, and yet there is a lot of unavoidable admin in sales. When your reps have to handle these menial duties, they will become dissatisfied. Unless they can showcase their truly valuable skills, it will seem like they are treading water.

The solution is to offload basic administrative tasks to assistants who work alongside the team. These employees will shoulder the simple yet time-consuming work, like data entry.

Give your sales people as much autonomy as possible

Micromanaging your sales team or restricting them too much will make them feel stifled and disgruntled. Instead you must amp up their autonomy, give them the freedom to make decisions and think creatively while they work.

There are a few ways of going about this, such as by authorizing them to hand out discounts in specific circumstances. This will also help them snare new customers who are playing hard to get.

Letting sales reps off the leash will remind them that they have flexibility in how they fulfill their duties. Just remember to actually tell them that they can take advantage of these powers, rather than letting them go to seed.

Appreciate and thank your sales team

Last of all, demonstrating your gratitude for all of the hard work that your sales reps put in day after day can make a big difference to morale.

It makes sense to go all-out with gifts and bonuses that reflect the successes that they have achieved. However, it is also important to remember that a simple ‘thank you’ can go a long way to bolstering self-esteem and increasing job satisfaction.

Furthermore, remember to share positive customer feedback with reps whenever you receive it. This reflects positively on them and also indicates just how valuable they are to the organization as a whole.

Employee recognition programs prove effective in lots of contexts, and sales is no different. Reinforcing the value of a worker will keep them committed in the long term, and it also contributes towards a positive corporate culture.

Final thoughts

The more content your sales team members are from day to day, the more successfully they will be able to sell to customers and clients. So implementing as many of the steps mentioned above is definitely going to pay dividends.

Most importantly, it is worth noting that seemingly minor changes in your management strategy, such as showing regular appreciation for reps, will have a major impact on performance. 

It is difficult to underestimate just how important your efforts in this area can be. And if you want to get the edge over rivals, then going beyond the call of duty in terms of sales team motivation is worthwhile.