Inspiring Your Sales Force

A motivated, invested sales force is key to getting your business off the ground and seeing it thrive. It’s your role as the leader of your company to put your team in a position to succeed, and inspiring your salespeople to achieve their best results is precisely how you can empower your business and your people.

Establish clear goals

Your sales team is made up of unique individuals who are motivated in different ways. While it’s important to have a clear baseline for performance that everyone aspires to, it’s on you as a leader to touch base individually with each person to get a sense of what drives them and how you can best tap into that motivation.

Writing for Inc., Sujan Patel suggests that your basic sales goal should be achievable for everyone on your team while still being somewhat challenging. Setting the bar too low can lead to listlessness and people doing the bare minimum, and setting the bar too high can lead to undue stress and dissatisfied customers. Find a happy medium that keeps everyone humming and stick to it, but be flexible in your own way — if a valued salesperson is having a tough month or quarter, meet with them for coffee and see what you can do to empower them to get things back on track.

Striking a balance between firm and fair will earn the trust of your team and encourage them to reach their goals. Patel notes you’ll also want to achieve a balance when it comes to competition between salespeople — you should want every member of your team to strive for the top spot, but not so much that they’ll step over one another to get there. It’s important you always keep perspective so everyone understands the ultimate goal is the success of the business.

Hold a sales kickoff

Sales are never finished, but it’s crucial to take time out and celebrate your team’s wins and what they mean for your business. For this, Heike Young writes for Salesforce that a sales kickoff event (SKO) provides just the right forum to hold up your victories and set a tone for the next round.

According to Young, a good place to start your sales kickoff is by reestablishing those goals and bringing them into perspective with a keynote speech. In your capacity as the leader of the company, you should see this as an opportunity to excite your team. From here, you can encourage interaction between members of the sales team — create breakout sessions where groups work together to address potential challenges with on-the-fly solutions, hold panels where trusted leaders provide insight or invite clients to take part in focus groups.

Speaking with the members of your sales team allows you to incentivize performance, and your SKO is a great time to demonstrate success in sales will result in awards and recognition. Whether it’s something as simple as a plaque, shout-out, or financial motivation like a bonus, vacation time, or gifts, use the platform to show your team members you recognize their success and appreciate what they bring to the table.

By taking these steps, you can bank on your salespeople coming to the office ready to achieve and willing to fulfill the ultimate goal of propelling your business forward. Creating a culture of success starts with you, so take your role seriously and get creative in motivating your sales force.