Sales Team Motivation - Your Small, Medium or large business Sales and Marketing Team

Depending on your sales and marketing team, your small, medium or large business can fly or flop. With a motivated and energetic group of sales people you can sell even the weakest of product.

Use Your People for their strengths, but as a team

You might be tempted to hire employees outside of your small, medium or large business, but an in-house sales force offers you more control, and at the same time more flexibility. The closer you keep your sales people, the better your marketing will be. Keep in mind 100 percent of the expenses associated with an in-house sales team must be paid by your small, medium or large business, so what you put into your sales and marketing team is essentially what you must get out.

Your Sales Team gets motivated when the can spend as much time in their workday closing sales. It is imperative there is a good supply of qualified leads and prospects and that there is a way to manage them to help automate the Marketing and Sales business processes, to follow-up with hot leads and important customers. This frees the salesperson to do what they do best - call and meet with customers to foster a great relationship between them, the business and the customer. CRM and Sales Force Automation (SFA) are two different things.

Sales Automation should always lead your CRM efforts.

Never assume all salespeople are alike. Never train them on Sales software like they are alike. Each has strengths and weaknesses, strategies and power, hierarchy and pedigree. Each needs a customer Sales software solution, complete with training and degree of choice whether even to participate in the new system, or not. The Sales software rollout should be designed up-front to mitigate risks in the rollout. Configure the software and strategy and training accordingly.

Use all of the resources you have at your disposal.

Your Sales team gets motivated by competition. Having monthly, quarterly and yearly quotas, goals, bonuses, gamification - all are about unlocking the competitive spirit of the Sales person and makes them want to blow out all records, to continuously improve and make more money doing it. Simply put, Salespeople want to be the best. And well they should, it is their job, after all.

What makes the elite of all top winners is better technology. This helps them succeed. Sales forecasting software is not just about tracking quarterly numbers, it is also a tool to helps Sales teams succeed, through competitive motivation.

Motivate your sales team by giving them a goal to go after, and a clear vision on how to go after it. This doesn't mean the goals and plans won't change frequently. In fact, that is what you want. As you learn more about your Sales, Customers, Prospects Partners, etc it means you want to change things for the better as you go. It is the way of the world now.

We use the words "Nimble" and "Fail often" and "Iterative" to describe forward-thinking businesses and their Sales teams. These are all describing innovation, and an innovative Sales Team is always measuring what is working and not working, changing strategy, testing and finding the right mix.

Planning a short-term, medium-term and long-term rollout and training strategy works better than trying to 'drink from a garden hose'. There are so many things a business could do, it is more about what the employees can handle from a training, learning and adoption standpoint. You get a quick win first, and then the CRM keeps giving, on a timely basis, forever.

Choose your staff wisely

Simply because someone is a "smooth talker", does not mean that individual can sell your product. To find the real cream of the crop you must first evaluate the candidate to see if he or she has these qualities.

1. Financially motivated

2. Excited to expand their knowledge

3. Self-assured

4. Welcomes a challenge

5. Determined

6. Aggressive

7. Able to deal with negative responses

8. Focused - a good listener

Say it like you mean it

Explain yourself, and tell the team exactly what you are looking for. Find a common ground where you and your employee are excited to help each other, because inevitably you need each other to make the small, medium or large business succeed!

Sales Team Training - Coach, Educate, and Guide your sales and marketing team

The most important thing in sales is to knowing your product. Nobody wants to buy a product that they are uneasy about. Your sales and marketing team needs to be confident in what they sell. Encourage your sales and marketing team to seek additional training to further educate them in specific areas of expertise.

Not only should your sales and marketing team know everything about your product, they should know everything about your competitors too, because that is where you expand as a small, medium or large business.� When your sales and marketing team knows what the competition was, is, and will be doing, you will always be on top!

Offer good compensation to your sales team

Make sure that your small, medium or large business has a solid compensation plan in place before you advertise the positions. Work out a base salary, and then discuss commission upon reviewing the skills the employee has to offer. This will motivate your sales and marketing team to work diligently for your small business.

Non financial motivation

Listen to your sales team and appreciate them for the hard work that they are doing to help establish your small, medium or large business.� Paid holidays, maternity leave and other benefit packages such as medical and dental, are all great incentives to work hard for your small, medium or large business, and to stick with it in the long run.

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