Problem: Staying Motivated
Working as a sales representative or professional isn’t a cakewalk. It’s a complex role that requires individuals to deal with other people who are facing their own issues in their own businesses or personal lives. A salesperson has to understand these issues, how their product or service can help, make the sale, and maintain a relationship.
All of this needs to be accomplished if you are a sales person– regardless of how you are feeling individually or the challenges you are facing. That said, staying motivated is one of the biggest challenges many salespeople face in their line of duty.
Rejection, unresponsive customers, finding qualified leads, prospecting are some of the things that affect the motivation of any salesperson. The moment you experience rejection on a regular basis, or a customer does not respond to any of your communication efforts, you will feel demoralized and your motivation will start to decrease.
It is worse if you have a team of salespeople that are not motivated. If this happens to your company or organization, you will realize that the sales and output of the company will start to decline. It is, therefore, essential to find ways on how to stay motivated.
Patterns
Your motivation and engagement as a salesperson or the motivation of your sales representatives will affect your productivity as an individual, the productivity of the company, and the general performance of the business. Noticing the first signs of the lack of motivation in you or in your sales team is important.
When you see that your sales representatives are not committed to performing their roles, that is an indication of lack of motivation. In order to make sales, a salesperson needs to stay focused and committed to ensuring that at least they attract traffic or make sales.
Regularly calling in sick or looking for excuses not to be on duty is another sign of lack of motivation among salespeople. Due to lack of motivation, people will try to get out of working. This might seem like it’s an obvious tell, but even if it’s recognized quickly, it can still be very detrimental to the performance of your business or organization. Sales representatives who are displaying a lack of engagement in this manner need to be addressed immediately.
Constantly failing to meet targets and goals is another sign of a demoralized sales team. It is okay to fail to meet your target once in a while. But when you do not meet your targets regularly then something is not right somewhere.
Solutions to this problem.
Work with each salesperson as an individual
To find out why your sales team lacks motivation, it is a good idea to work with an individual employee to establish where the problem could be and what will work for him or her. It is important to understand that salespeople are not the same and each person has his or her own issues that need to be addressed.
What works for one person may not work for another, so be sure to meet employees where they are at and try to get to the root of the problem through reviews, meetings, or pulse surveys.
Set tangible goals
You need to set realistic and tangible goals that each sales rep can work to achieve. Without tangible goals, no one in the team will ever know how success looks like. Remember to always celebrate small wins with your team whenever one achieves something. This will boost their morale.
You can use a goal-setting framework like OKRs to help manage your goals. You can also follow a framework like SMART goals to write specific, measurable goals that motivate and focus your team’s efforts.
Invest in sales training and coaching
You need to empower your sales team. You need to coach them on how to become better and improve their performance. The benefits of training far outweigh any costs you may incur, and when employees see you are investing in them as assets of the company, it can kickstart their motivation and desire to do well in their role.
Motivation plays an integral role in becoming a better salesperson. If you want to register increased sales, you need to ensure that your sales team is highly motivated.