How to Motivate Your Sales Team: 9 Tried-and-True Strategies

Motivation is more than Vince Lombardi quotes and quirky posters on the wall. It’s one of the most important components of sustained sales success over time.

As a sales manager or director, you can only influence your team’s sales performance in two dimensions: Their skill set (what they can do) and their motivation (how repeatedly or passionately they do it).

Improving your team’s skill set is a largely objective process. By evaluating current performance metrics and comparing them to a successful end state, you can diagnose what areas need improvement and act accordingly.

But motivation is far harder. Not only are there are many external factors that affect motivation, every person requires different incentives and motivational tactics. In my decades as a sales leader, I’ve used the following strategies to successfully motivate my team and drive motivation through the roof.

1. Build trust with the people on your team.

The foundation of motivation is trust. If your team doesn’t trust you and doesn’t believe you have their best interests at heart, it’ll be difficult for them to feel inspired and driven by their work. When salespeople are unmotivated, you won’t be able to re-inspire them unless you have an open and honest conversation about their challenges and goals -- something that simply won’t happen without trust. It’s a vicious -- or virtuous -- cycle.

Managers have to create trust and then maintain it by engaging with their team in a consistent, nurturing fashion. The best way to build trust is to be completely transparent. Simply discussing trust can be a great way of starting off on the right foot.

在我30年的职业生涯中，我使用了一个简单的声音来开始这次谈话。这似乎是一个肮脏的问题，但从来没有工作过。我只是说，“茱莉亚,我想确保我们信任relationship. How can we build trust between us?”

It’s pretty direct and it’s a great way to explain to the team that I am interested in working on a business relationship, rather than being their boss.

2. Ask your direct reports how they like to be managed.

I always tell new team members three important things:

1. Everybody’s personality is different.
2. I want to be an effective manager for your work style and personality.
3. 我可以修改自己的行为以满足您的需求。您想如何管理？

Just as different prospects will require different selling styles and effective salespeople understand how to adapt to those styles, effective managers understand that the best way to get results out of their team is to fit into their reports’ worlds, instead of forcing one method of communication or strategy on everyone else.

Here are some questions I ask my direct reports to help them figure out what their work style is like:

1. 您喜欢的互动速度是什么？您想每周，每隔一周还是每周多次与我见面？
2. How do you want me to give you feedback?
3. Do you prefer public or private praise and feedback?
4. What type of feedback do you prefer?
5. If I hear something amiss, do you want me to tell you, email you, wait until our one-on-one, or something else?
6. If something I do gets on your nerves, will you let me know?

3. Understand your direct reports’ personal and professional goals.

You can’t motivate someone unless you know what drives them. Understand what your direct reports each want to accomplish in their personal and professional lives. This will not only show you the type of person they are, but also give you insight into what things will motivate them the most.

Once you understand their goals, ask them the following questions:

1. Are you motivated right now?
2. What motivates you long term?
3. What can you do to motivate yourself?
4. How will I know if you are not motivated?
5. What do you want me to do if you don’t appear motivated?

Even if it seems obvious, you always need to ask. If they can’t tell you the answers to these questions, give them 48 hours to figure it out. Forcing your reps to be self-reflective makes it more likely they’ll give you thoughtful answers, which will be better for you both in the long run.

4.确保他们的基础知识。

A salesperson’s motivation always suffers when they’re not taking care of themselves. Your team’s results are influenced by -- may even depend on -- consistent sleep, exercise, and a healthy diet.

罗伯特Yao, the founder and CEO of EpiFinder, so strongly believes in this idea he’s created a “Robert Yao Hierarchy of Needs.” Whenever someone on his team seems disengaged or demotivated, he shows them the pyramid and asks,“你need more of?”

If they point to “food,” he’ll buy them lunch. If they point to “sleep,” he’ll tell them to take a nap. If they point to “exercise,” he’ll say,“Go for a walk.”

虽然您不必走这么远，但强调平衡生活方式的重要性将对销售人员的动力水平产生持续的影响。

At HubSpot, we offer employees access to a gym, plenty of healthy food and snacks, and a nap room.

5. Set daily, weekly, and monthly goals.

Different salespeople are motivated in different ways. Some people are motivated by team-wide sales contests. Some are driven by quota achievement. Some are motivated by qualitative improvements. Some people are motivated by their impact on the organization. Some people are motivated by money.

Here’s how you should think about each type of goal and SPIF (sales performance incentive fund):

• Daily:This is a very short-term goal designed to break a rep out of their funk. The SPIF should be something fun but lightweight, since the rep isn’t doing that much to earn it.
• 每周：这是一个更切实的目标，具有定义的业务影响。设置改进的指标，然后与您的代表合作制定计划，每天运用必要的技能以实现这一目标。这应该是一个稍微参与的奖励，例如一轮高尔夫，将影响有意义的结果。
• Monthly:The largest of the three goals, monthly goals are accompanied by higher-value rewards based on extraordinary performance. I prefer not to give cash, because once you spend it, it’s gone. Instead, I’ve given physical SPIFs like speakers and TV sets. Every time your rep looks at that item, they’ll remember the process they went through to earn it.

6. Figure out where the issue lies.

There are two main aspects of motivation every sales manager must handle: Individual motivation, and group-wide motivation.

Before you do anything to boost motivation, ask yourself,“How many people seem like their spirits are flagging?”

If the answer is“just one or two,”you’re dealing with outliers. If that number is three or more, there’s a problem with the entire team.

7. Let people pick their own rewards.

Salespeople always do a great job choosing prizes -- after all, they have the most insight into what they want! Plus, this makes your job easier.

I use a three-step process to getting people to design their own sales contest.

First, I ask them if they need motivation. I’ll say,“How do you feel? Do you need a kick in the pants?”

They’ll either say yes -- in which case I’ll move to the next step -- or“不，我们很好。”If it’s the latter, I’ll say, “It doesn’t sound like you’re motivated today, but if you can hit [activity or monetary goal] without an extra boost, that works for me.”The team will always respond,“No, no, Tyre, we need the motivation.”

Then I’ll ask, “Okay, what do you think the objective should be?”

After they’ve decided on a target, I’ll ask them to pick a timeframe.

Lastly, I’ll ask, “What reward do you want [within X budget]?”

This strategy is straightforward yet highly effective. My reps love it.

8. Give great rewards.

有时，您可能需要给销售人员一些灵感。这是我最喜欢的个人SPIF建议：

• Prospect for them
• Buy them (and maybe a few friends) lunch or dinner
• Cook them lunch or dinner
• Clean their house (or hire a company to clean it for them)
• Babysit their kids
• Walk their dog
• Wash their car
• 给他们完整的休息日

Unlike a traditional cash prize, these rewards are motivating to the entire team. Everyone will be rooting for the individual rep -- because who doesn’t want to see their manager cooking their coworker dinner?

When you’re offering a team-wide SPIF, use these ideas:

• Take everyone out to the movies in the middle of the day
• Go bowling
• Attend a sports game
• Throw a pool party or BBQ
• Volunteer at a soup kitchen or local philanthropic organization (great for bonding)
• Play paintball or dodgeball
• Visit a go-cart facility

And when you want to truly rally your salespeople and show how committed you are, get a little wacky.

• Dress like a taco
• Shave your beard or head
• 长胡子
• Go in a dunk tank
• Sing at karaoke
• Perform a dance
• Pledge to give up coffee for a week
• Eat your least favorite food for lunch
• 穿一件有趣的衬衫上班

The goal: Do something playful and memorable.

Interestingly, sometimes the best SPIFs aren’t ones that seem to have any value at all to an outsider. I used to work withDon Bulensat Lotus, and we had a plastic doll we called the Tiny Little Baby Award. It got passed around to the best rep on a monthly basis and was displayed at the winner’s desk. People loved it -- the doll had no inherent value, but it was a way of recognizing people’s achievements, and reps cared more about the accomplishment of getting the baby than the baby itself.

9. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

As we previously established, trust is paramount to establishing a relationship with your team and getting their participation, buy-in, and motivation. In order to establish that trust, take a look at how you communicate with your team, both on an individual level and team-wide.

You can easily conduct a stand-up meeting in the morning to get your reps' blood pumping, using your energy and enthusiasm to bring up the temperature in the room and start the day off right. You can also conduct one-on-one meetings to really get to know each team member on an individual level and help coach them toward their goals.

It also helps to have mini check-ins during the day, whether that's with a short motivational email or an encouraging word when they're not busy.

Touch points like these serve as external validation that can be a big motivating factor.

Examples of a Motivational Email to Sales Team

如果您下一步提高销售领导水平是与团队更多的接触点，请考虑不时向他们发送激励性电子邮件。对于远程销售环境来说，这是一个特别好的策略，您可能无法在呼叫或水冷却器之间进行面对面的互动。目标是承认他们正在做的辛勤工作，并鼓励他们保持精力。

Sometimes, the times that your team needs encouragement the most is when their numbers are down. Your reps will be looking to you to provide leadership, which includes an action plan and rallying energy. Here's how you can do this in an email:

Motivational Email When Numbers Are Down

Good morning, team!

As you know, we've been trending X% below goal since [Date]. This is due in large part because of [challenge or problem]. Given these challenges, I'm proud of how we've performed so far. For example, [Provide an example of a win].

As our leadership team looks into solutions for the factors outside of our control, we can do [action plan] in the meantime.

Ebbs and flows happen, and it's up to us to see ourselves through the dip. This week, we'll be revisiting some of the fundamentals by [action plan] to shake things up and get some results.

看forward to approaching this puzzle with fresh eyes.

Keep up the good work,

[Name]

At the same time, you might want to motivate your team to reach new highs even when sales are up. It's all to easy for reps to pull their foot off the gas when goals are being met and exceeded. However, it's actually good to help them lean into those headwinds. For example:

Motivational Email When Numbers Are Up

Congratulations, team!

I've just received word that we just hit [milestone], exceeding our targets by X%. Each one of you should feel proud for getting us to this stage. That's why I'm excited to announce [how the team is being rewarded for their performance].

同时，让我们继续骑这波。我鼓励大家保持专注，并继续您一直在做的出色工作。我们的势头在我们身边，我们可以利用它来创纪录的季度！

Keep up the good work,

[Name]

Ultimately, inspiring motivation is about finding the thing that makes your reps willing to go the extra mile. People who aren’t motivated won’t suddenly become top performers if you offer them $1,000 cash. Find the thing that makes your reps tick, and the ones who have the self-discipline and inner talent to work for a reward will shine.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in July 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.