#17 Mystery of Sales Team Motivation Metric

Welcome to our series, OMG: One Metric for Growth, where we dive deep into real-life examples of how one metric helped an organization to grow their business. Today's Metric for Growth is: “Mystery of Sales Team Motivation Metric” 📈 :

Why Sales Team cannot be motivated by traditional approach? It is a common misconception that sales teams can be directly motivated by traditional means. Motivation is temporary, and it is tiring to constantly motivate them through speeches. The truth is you can’t force motivation. Instead, you can cultivate an environment in which the team feels motivated.

What are the ways to create a motivated environment?

The Sales teams are the backbone of any organisation. They are the bridge between customers and management. Let us discuss a few crucial ways :

1) Learning and Sharing of Learning – The emphasis should be on learning and applying new learnings. The learnings can be through the market, reading a book, or joining a course. One way to implement it is to have a weekly session in which team members share what they have learned and application of that learning in their work. Initially, the senior person can take the initiative; eventually, every team member can participate and make it exciting.

2) Training – Training can be internal or through external experts. What matters more is consistency. In addition to product training, it is important to train for soft skills. For example, asking the right questions is one of the key components of soft training. By asking the right questions and understanding the prospect's requirements, salespeople will be able to sell more efficiently.

3) Celebrate – Behaviour recognized is behaviour repeated. If achievements, sharing of learnings and training can be awarded with a small gift, it can still be very effective. Every celebration doesn’t need to be a big one.  

Little Celebrations go a long way. They make you a family. Be it celebrating a foundation day or birthday, festivals or achievements, when you celebrate together it strengthens the bond amongst each other. This will give a feeling of belonging.

4) Process-Driven Culture – More than 80% of sales elements are repeated processes. Some feel that we will do according to our mood and need freedom, but the fact is that those who are disciplined and process-oriented produce more results. Set the process for the things that matter the most and are repeated in nature.

5)Challenge in their Expertise - One of the prerequisites to growth is challenge. When you challenge someone, they strive to achieve the outcome by going out of their way. Some salespeople are smart at negotiating, while some are good at convincing clients to close. However, challenging them occasionally can sharpen their skills and develop their personality. When they hit the target, do not forget to appreciate them or celebrate.

6) Measure what matters – People will do what you measure. If every step you take is not measured, then people shift to default behaviour. This will result in non-synergies within the department and inter-department too.

7) Align Incentive - It can be monetary or non-monetary. A small incentive works wonders whenever they achieve the target or follow a process. Incentives are like desserts. They have a fulfilling and feel-good effect. Some sales professionals enjoy cash and tangible items, while intrinsic incentives push others.

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Aligning the incentives according to achievement is essential.

Also, long-term and short-term impact need to be considered while designing incentives. If the incentives are based only on sales, then somebody may compromise profit. Growth and sustainability may be ignored if the incentives are based only on profit.  

True motivation comes from creating an environment that encourages growth, celebrates success, challenges skills, and aligns efforts with meaningful incentives. This approach transforms a sales team into a motivated, high-performing unit.

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