As a business owner, you can influence the success of your sales team through two things: their motivation and their skills. Luckily, both of these are possible through quality digital training. Improving the skills of your sales team is a tried and true process. You can find many articles about how to implement sales training in your organization, first evaluating team performance, comparing it with set targets, and assigning training that targets areas to improve. Increasing motivation is a bit more difficult because multiple factors affect the morale of a team and different team members require different motivation tactics or incentives. Read on to learn about six creative ways to motivate your sales team.

Provide Them With Relevant Training

There are many online training platforms today. To motivate your team, look for one that offers practical applications to the kind of tasks that the team handles. The training you choose should change the way your sales team performs while at the same time reflecting on their daily operations. Training your team means that you are dealing with people who have a lot of other responsibilities. For sales, this may mean a few things: 

  • Implement just-in-time training, so reps can learn on the job when the need arises, not at a preset time.
  • Choose a program that allows for mobile learning and is accessible anywhere.
  • Ensure the team understands the value of the training program.
  • Offer incentives to team members who complete the training courses with clear paths to climbing up the career ladder.
  • Make a point to bring up training during performance reviews or one-on-ones.

Recognize & Reward Employees

As a business owner, you need to come up with programs that you can recognize and reward great employees for what they have done. It should never be all work all the time. To get started, make sure that you understand the team members well. You do not need to give someone something that they do not like, and the impact of personalized gifts goes much farther than generic ones. 55% of people keep personalized gifts longer than traditional ones, and 62% of Americans say they’d prefer a thoughtful gift tailored to them than money or gift cards (NY Post). Think of the best way to implement this recognition process - some members of your team might prefer some incentives over others. Here are a few ideas to get you started: 

  • Sales contests.
  • An MVP or employee of the month program.
  • A raffle ticket every time they hit their goals, giving them more chances to win a prize.
  • A recognition software, like Bonusly, where team members can give bonuses to their teammates to appreciate their work for that month, usually in the form of a gif, shoutout, and/or points. These points can be cashed in for gift cards once enough are collected.
  • Quota achievements.
  • Certificates that they can put on their LinkedIn or add to their portfolio.
  • Personalized awards at Awards.com, designed to match the tastes and preferences of each of your sales team members.

Set Achievable Goals

It’s important to set weekly, monthly, and/or annual goals that each of the sales team members should achieve. However, setting impossible or difficult to achieve goals is highly discouraging and leaves employees feeling underperforming and dejected. Evaluate the goals you set and make sure that they are within reach. To read a more detailed description of how to do this, make sure you check out the article How to Create & Apply SMART Employee Training Goals.

Offer Personalized Learning Paths

Learning never ends - especially for people who want a successful career. In fact, most employees do not want to be stagnant but look for opportunities for career growth, where they can do and earn more. One way to motivate them is to find ways of helping them grow and improve their performance by offering personalized Learning Paths within a Learning Management System. For example, if an employee is struggling with a specific task or skill, curate a set of courses that helps them improve those specific areas while skipping skills they may already have harnessed. Usually, if employees dislike training, it’s because the content is not relevant to them, or is highly repetitive. With Learning Paths, you can assign curated content meant for the individual.

Build Trust With Your Sales Team

Trust is very important when it comes to motivating employees. If you are managing a sales team that finds it hard to trust you, then it will be a huge mountain for you to climb when motivating the team. With an honest and open conversation about your business goals and their challenges, you can promote transparency and allow for some vulnerability.

Build A Culture

Usually, people think of onboarding new hires when they hear the words “employee training.” But just like staying active and brushing your teeth, the key to great training is consistency. Instead of a sprint, think of training as a circular timeline, creating an ongoing process that never truly ends, just waxes and wanes. The best way to keep employees constantly up to date is to find ways of embedding training into the culture of your business. Ensure that your sales team understands how continuous training can benefit them and understands your business values their participation and loyalty. Doing this will motivate the team members to keep learning, and in return, you will see a progressive improvement in their performance. In fact, every $1 spent in training usually generates an ROI of $30 back to your company, making it one of the best investments in your future business. When people feel that you care about them and are concerned about their future, it’s easier to stay at a job. The performance of your sales team is vital when it comes to the success of your business. Apart from hiring people with the right skill sets and experience, you also need to ensure that they are motivated to keep working hard for you. Following the tips discussed above, you will find it easy to motivate your sales team. 

To talk with a training expert about implementing or optimizing your sales training program, schedule a free consultation today!

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