Are you having trouble with your sales team? Are they lacking that “it” factor that propelled them in the beginning? Do you need advice that will start motivating a sales team? Sales are critical. When the product’s ability to sell itself starts stagnating and advertisement can’t create that extra awareness and allure; sales become that critical engine. They are tact, awareness, and energy toward motivation. Pointed motivation with an objective-driven mindset.
Breaking down the fundamentals of sales we can see where low energy and motivation can adversely affect parts of the sales process and construct significant countermeasures.
Motivation
Motivation itself may be at the core of the issue. There are numerous schools of thought on this. Motivation is the core of pushing the sale. Motivation does not exist. It is just a label for our behaviors. Regardless, the concept of motivation is one of action toward a goal. But, motivating a sales team can be difficult.
This is something low morale can adversely affect to a staggering extent. Here are several ways how to motivate a sales team.
Create Deeper Value
Whether it is from a higher purpose, a sense of community within their team, or even a vision for a better position and brighter future, motivation to action comes from a deep place. By finding value agents and servicing them toward the team’s individual needs you can harness a much more powerful response.
It is unlikely that many of the people on the sales team aspired to be in this place as children and even less likely to aspire to remain here into their final days. Truly motivating a sales team stems from a deeper sense of purpose and calling. Think about what the team needs. What are the team’s individual callings?
Make People Feel Good
Make people feel wanted, valued, and respected. Heck, make people feel special. It does not matter so much what the nuance of the term is so long as you can tailor what you do to make each individual feel good. That feeling of reward from doing a job well is all that many individuals need to propel themselves forward.
It could be as simple as allowing performing salespeople to have greater involvement in decision-making. They are important and their opinion matters. It may take the form of a flexible work schedule. They are important and their time matters. Compensate them fairly and offer them growth opportunities and autonomy in their providential future. They are important and the work they are doing matters.
Create the Right Environment
This involves building the right sales team. However, once you have collected that sales team with all the proper moving parts and people you need to begin fostering your environment. This will in part be a piece of company culture. That means the demeanor will be tilted in the direction of whatever job you are aiming to accomplish. One could presume that a professional football team will have a different mentality than a bakery. Maybe not, I don’t know.
Regardless then it is your job to take that group and define where you need to be within the space of that industry. This depends largely on the skills and demeanor of the people you have hired. Cultivate the environment that works best for them.
Concise, Clear, Consistent/Confident/Complete
It seems there are believably endless amounts of “3 C’s of ______.” Well here is another. Technically three others, because ironically “experts” are unclear on what the final C actually is. No matter, I can break down all five of them and how a lack of motivation can impact each along the sales line.
Concise, Clear, Consistent, Confident, and Complete. These are the three (five) C’s of communication. They exist to streamline conversation and messaging so that they can be held in high regard throughout the duration of the sales opportunity. Sales mean communication.
Concise
This is keeping the conversation inbounds. It does not necessarily mean that the conversation itself needs to stay “on point.” However, it does mean that only things that help the conversation need to be said. Concise, means letting the prospect speak. Then using your mind to return their problem to the solution that what you are selling can solve.
A lack of motivation in this area could result in the salespeople not listening and understanding the prospective client or failing to keep their pitches highly efficient.
Clear
Clarity is the baseline of understanding. If the client cannot understand you then you will have difficulty selling to them. You must be understood as a salesperson. Being concise will help with this. Conciseness should keep it simple. Simplicity acts as a favor to clarity. Clarity is paramount to being understood by another. It could be favorably argued that sales and communication as a whole are most fully reliant on this one, singular aspect. You must be understood.
The lack of motivation could affect this by instilling apathy in the salesperson to be understood. If the salesperson is not understood and does not aspire to be understood, the result will likely be flubbed sales. Even with potential eager clients sales will fall short.
Consistent
Get the idea across. Increase familiarity and conversational rhythm with having intermittent “touchstones.” Fair enough? Being consistent establishes confidence within the prospect which is what this driving part of sales is all about. Confidence and reliance within the client’s eyes.
Again, no motivation here will take form in the conversation going off the track. The salesperson will likely not keep it to a point. From there the lack of flow will likely stunt the sale for anyone unsure of their desire to purchase the product or service.
Confident
This element serves the same function as “consistency.” It serves to create confidence in the potential customer. While you are trying to sell the customer on the product. The savvy salesperson is trying to sell the individual on their own confidence throughout the conversation. High-end selling is the transfer of emotion from the salesperson to the client.
Belief in oneself commonly lacks with loss of motivation and in regard to confidence. The lack of motivation here is one of the most apparent as this is one of the exposing elements of the idea of “selling” someone on something. That energy and verve is once again paramount and a lack of motivation heavily affects that.
Completeness
Pull it all together. Completeness is the “trial-ready” version of your pitch and style. Likewise, this involves taking the other person’s perspective and fear’s into account. From there it asks how to tailor your messaging to best work off of that. Completeness additionally asks that you make no assumptions within that and are understanding and open to the parts of the conversation that may change the course of the plan. From there be able to review and fully break down the natural elements at play during the process.
No motivation here will likely take the form of disorganization and scattered thinking. Like “confidence” there will be the feeling of a missing element. Which is why these two are so often exchanged. They provide the unspoken backing of the other areas of good communication.
