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21 unique ways to motivate your sales

team
by Michele McGovern
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Money talks. But all that talk won’t buy you a motivated sales team.

Motivation runs deeper than numbers.

Sales leaders need ways to ignite salespeople’s inner desires to win, have fun, do better and
be praised.

Salespeople like money, so you must compensate fairly, with understandable structure and
predictable frequency. Beyond money, use frequently changing, motivational tactics tailored
to salespeople.

These 21 ideas will deliver.

1. Give work deeper meaning

People who !nd meaning in their work – those who walk away almost every day feeling good
about what they did – are more motivated and committed, according to Harvard Business
School research.

Company mission and values are just words until you help salespeople understand their role
in making altruistic goals happen. As salespeople, they might only see their goal as bringing
in accounts and making money for the company. True motivation will come from
understanding the social purpose your product or service supports and the impact it has on
people and communities.

Regularly collect customer success stories – what they’ve achieved or how your product or
service made their lives easier. Take those to everyone in the organization, as it’s important
for people outside of sales to share in the meaning.

2. Make people feel valued

While salespeople need to !nd meaning in their work, they need to feel their work is valued
by their boss and company to stay motivated, a study by the American Psychological
Association found. Praise is a good start, and explaining why what they’ve done matters is a
stronger !nish.

Five ways to make salespeople feel valued:

Invite them to get involved in decision-making

O"er growth and advancement opportunities

Create #exible work arrangements

Compensate fairly and adequately, and

O"er rewards beyond cash that are important to them – time o", public recognition,
opportunities to share or lead, etc.

3. Emphasize collaboration before competition

Salespeople are competitive by nature, but going head-to-head with each other can create
negative motivation. It drives some to disregard their colleagues and others to resent their
colleagues.

Foster collaboration above competition, and it’s more likely everyone will be motivated. The
goal is to compete against competitors, not each other. Encourage collaboration by
rewarding mentoring, knowledge-sharing and e"orts to work together to overcome the
competition.

4. Encourage and recognize initiative

In the same vein as collaboration, encourage salespeople to be entrepreneurs by cultivating
ideas to grow business. Give them the time, freedom and space to try their ideas (with just
enough oversight from you to be sure they’re not chasing rainbows or wasting time and
resources.)

Reward them for bringing new ideas to increase market share and !nd new customers. Give
larger rewards for ideas that are implemented – and even larger rewards for ideas that work.

5. Keep check on who you do business with

Closing deals is important to the bottom line. For salespeople, closing deals with customers
they like is important to morale. Bottom line results will more than likely follow.

Entrepreneur and sales consultant Troy Hazard has shared his personal proof that this
approach works to motivate salespeople: He realized 60% of his company’s clients were
people his team didn’t particularly like, respect or trust. He didn’t get rid of those customers,
but he told his sales team to refocus on their company values. In a memo, he wrote,
“Beginning now, our new criteria for taking on new business will be that we like the client
and that they are prepared to pay our price. Do not deviate from this and follow your
intuition, and don’t try to make any potential clients !t into our culture, people, and what we
stand for.” Morale immediately shot up.

6. Celebrate small wins

You don’t have to plan a party every time salespeople land a meeting. But morale shoots up
when small accomplishments are recognized, according to another Harvard Business
School study.

Small wins have a disproportionate power over boosting moods and changing the
perception of challenge. Recognize small wins – such as moving a prospect one step further
down the pipeline – with written or verbal praise. Save big celebrations for larger group wins.

7. Encourage everyone to track wins

In sales, it’s often easy to focus on the setbacks and rejections because they happen more
often than the small and big wins. Get salespeople to focus more on wins by asking them to
track daily wins – if just the little things that made them feel good such as a great
conversation with a customer – and send you a message about them.

Compile at least one of those wins for each salesperson into a weekly “win message” to the
team. Include wins in categories important to your business – perhaps professional
development, understanding the industry, getting a leg up on the competition and/or signing
a !rst-time deal.

8. Praise the group publicly

Small-win recognition is powerful (especially for salespeople who aren’t comfortable with
public praise – and, yes, there are some salespeople who aren’t). Public praise for the team
gives a double dose of morale.

Your praise in a meeting or a shout-out in the o$ce when everyone is around is the !rst
dose. Colleagues talking about the win and congratulating each other is the second dose.

9. Build the team

Team-building activities generally generate more eye rolling than excitement, but research
proves it actually works at improving morale and employee retention.

The key: Get the group to interact, have fun and build skills in a natural way.

Formal or informal, skip the awkward games or sharing of emotions.

10. Stay positive

Anyone in the sales profession faces negative situations weekly, if not daily – rejection,
anger, confusion. It’s di$cult to rise above all the challenges and stay motivated day-in,
day-out.

That’s where sales leaders must step in, being cheerleaders of sorts. Three keys:

Acknowledge salespeople’s worries and defeats, but avoid echoing them

Recognize frustrations, but use positive language and suggestions to keep the focus
on personal goals and company values, and

Identify challenges and fears, but continue to take and suggest risks.

11. Connect them to their future career

To motivate salespeople who are interested in career trajectory, link today’s activities to
tomorrow’s career. Help them map the path to their career goals – perhaps moving up
within your company or to a new industry or entrepreneurship. Allow them to take on day-
to-day activities that will build the skills they need to achieve their long-term career goals.

One caveat: Recognize that not all salespeople want a “bigger” career. Some are happy – and
motivated – as salespeople: They’d rather help customers than manage people. Know who
doesn’t want to climb a ladder before you show them how to do it.

12. Educate
Most salespeople are motivated by the chance to learn more about their industry,
customers, products or services and other subjects that will help them do better at work and
life.

Encourage them to learn more by building time and expectations into their schedules to
attend virtual and o"site educational events (not just events where they’d sell). Steer them
to relevant webinars and podcasts. Give them books.

13. Be ready for the ‘!re alarm’

Sales leaders who keep themselves immersed in the sales process – without micro-
managing – tend to be more empathetic to salespeople’s day-to-day struggles. Salespeople
are motivated when they know their bosses have empathy and are easy to get a hold of if
the salesperson needs to pull a “!re alarm” for immediate help, suggests Jaimie McFarlin,
Executive Director of AdmitLink Consulting.

Knowing the boss has your back is a morale booster.

14. O"er incentive choices

Every salesperson is motivated di"erently. Some people will like one incentive, while others
will be compelled by a di"erent bene!t. One perk will appeal to the masses while another
motivational tactic will light a !re under a few. (That rings true for all the tactics we’ve
compiled here. You’ve been forewarned that not all of these will work for everyone all the
time!)

One thing that works across the board to motivate with incentives: Let salespeople pick the
incentives they want. An Aberdeen study found companies that adopted di"erent kinds of
incentives had 33% more salespeople hit quota and had a 23% higher rate of team quota
attainment.

O"er a variety of incentives in your budget range and set goals salespeople can realistically
reach so they are motivated to attain the incentives they want.

15. Be a committed, strategic coach

Sales managers are usually salespeople’s foremost coaches – and might only show up to
coach after mistakes or losses. Then salespeople only associate coaching with failure, which
is kick in the morale pants.

Motivate salespeople by showing a commitment to coaching – time spent on praising,

developing and improving, plus time scheduled strategically to help when it’s most
necessary.

16. Foster critical relationships

When trying to motivate a sales team, one thing that’s often overlooked are the seemingly
innocuous things that have a de-motivating e"ect. Some biggies: !nger-pointing, contention,
silos and back-stabbing between critical areas such as Marketing, Customer Support and
Development.

Sales leaders who build up those relationships and foster good relations between their
salespeople and other departments achieve higher morale than those who allow
contentious relationships. Bring the groups together to uncover ways to communicate
better, collaborate on customer-focused projects more often and celebrate group victories.

17. Play games the right way

There’s no shortage of advice on gami!cation, daily or even hourly contests, bracket (a-la
March Madness) competitions and the like. And nearly every sales group has used a
competition at one time or another to motivate salespeople.

Regardless of the type of games and competitions you host, keep these essential elements
to success in mind:

Make it brief. The motivational e"ects of any competition are short-lived, even if the
prize is sizable. Salespeople will be excited to participate for a few weeks and the
winners will relish in a victory for just days.

Keep it simple. Each competition should be aimed at motivating a single behavior (for
example, making more calls, setting up more appointments, closing more deals).

Broadcast results. Ideally, you want real-time results so salespeople can see where
they stand throughout the competition. Most sales and CRM software o"er this.

Make it team-based. We know not all sales leaders have enough salespeople to do a
team competition, but if you can, do it. Team-based competitions build camaraderie
and lend themselves to more kindness and fairness. Individual based competitions
(unfortunately) often end in complaints of cheating and stacking the odds. Team
competitions also level the playing !eld: Top individual performers won’t win every time
and low performers won’t get frustrated every time.

Engage executives. Ask the C-level to o"er praise and encouragement along the way.
Being recognized by executives can motivate even the salespeople who don’t win.

Keep it fresh. Don’t keep running the same short-term sales contests. Come up with
new metrics, themes, goals and prizes based on your organizational and industry
needs.

18. Manage with #exibility

You might be a leader to everyone on the sales team, but you don’t need to be the same
leader to everyone. Managing in just one fashion, forcing your will and imposing your ways
will hurt morale – no matter the singular approach you take.

To motivate salespeople, manage each in a way that !ts with his or her work style. To
determine how you want to lead each salesperson, ask questions like these:

How often do you like to interact – several times a week, weekly, every two weeks?

Do you prefer private or public praise?

What kind of feedback do you prefer?

How do you want me to give you feedback – face-to-face, written, through coaching,
etc.?

How involved do you want me in your selling process?

How will you let me know about your concerns and accomplishments?

19. Enable and ennoble

We’ve already recognized that training and adding meaning to work are important factors in
the success of salespeople. But leaders can’t just check them o" the list after monthly
product training and a vision statement.

Deb Calvert, author of Stop Selling & Start Leading and founder of The Sales Experts
Channel, says motivation comes from helping salespeople grow in their capacity, con!dence
and competence (enablement), plus making them feel important (ennoblement).

Regularly ask if your expectations are reasonable and if you provide enough resources to
meet them. Praise what they’ve accomplished and proven, and you’ll feed con!dence and
competence. Then explain why it’s important to you, executives, customers and the
organization’s future, and you’ll feed the need to feel important.

20. Let them be heroes

Heroes are motivated to do the most unnatural things in the worst circumstances. Sounds
like the sales environment, right?

“Leaders can (and should) recognize, support and reward the heroic salesperson in a variety
of ways, including encouraging and rewarding risk-taking. Tolerate a reasonable level of
failure, and support those who act on bold visions,” says Andy Gole, president of Urgency
Based Selling and author of Innovate Now – Scale up with 16 Sales Breakthrough
Techniques, in the Forbes Councils.

To motivate heroic salespeople, Gole suggests:

Smartly support creativity, discovery and risk-taking. When those are done well to
generate positive outcomes, salespeople will feel like heroes.

Help salespeople convey strong beliefs. The more salespeople witness the good your
products and services do, the more they’ll believe in what they sell. As their customers
succeed, their positive feelings will increase.

Encourage rest. Give salespeople the time and resources to practice a “meditative
mindset.” Mediation, yoga and other relaxation methods help them avoid burnout and
remain heroes.

21. Fuel them

Salespeople have hectic jobs and lives. Many travel. Most put in extra e"orts. That can lead
to a bad balance of nutrition, exercise and sleep. And when those are out of whack,
motivation will su"er.

Leaders need to keep a watchful eye on the numbers and salespeople’s physical well-being.
If salespeople admit to or seem to be feeling sleep deprived, suggest time o" or just a nap.
Provide healthy food on-site and connect them with information about on-the-go nutrition.
Encourage them to take time to exercise and unwind in their favorite, healthy ways.

About Michele McGovern

Michele is a veteran writer and editor who has focused on what makes
businesses rock and roll for more than 20 years. She has authored many
white papers for upper-level execs and business news posts on topics such
as employee morale, customer service, loyalty and sales.

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