Sales administrators are always maintaining a difficult balance. You must make your compensation plans desirable to keep your salespeople selling for you while still maintaining the company’s bottom line. So, what additional resources do you have at your disposal to motivate your sales reps? One of the strongest tools available to you is recognition, as salespeople tend to respond very positively to it. Here are 3 recognition-focused strategies to keep your employees motivated
- Highlighting Success
The average salesperson is not motivated by an intrinsic desire to simply succeed for your company. In the absence of recognition, they will not be properly motivated to sell for you. You must use recognition to draw out the true skills of your team, as when they feel recognized by the company, they feel like they are a greater part of it and will sell that much better for it. So, it is beneficial to highlight a rep’s success for the rest of the team. This both sets the standard for the rest of your team as well as give a great sense of accomplishment to the rep in question
2. Engage in Competition
It is also well known that salespeople love to compete. Selling as an occupation draws in competitive people who love to take life by the horns and see how well they can succeed. Make this success apparent for them by giving rewards and creating contests. Using a reps’ natural desire to compete against one another will drive them far and rewarding top sellers will push them to continue reaching the top. Those not in the lead will fight for it just as hard, and whether they reach it or not they are boosting your company’s sales. In this way, you can leverage a salesperson’s desire for recognition to support your business.
3. Recognition as its Own Reward
Its important to remember that recognition also must be its own reward sometimes. It is common management practice to start off constrictive criticism with praise before going into areas that need improvement, so employees don’t feel dejected. This can accidentally hamstring your efforts to recognize successes. Your team may not react to this praise as recognition, and they may feel you are only trying to soften the blow and not actually recognizing them. Call out success where you note it, don’t always save it to sweeten criticism.
Now, this might sound like just more work for the sales administrator. Not only do they have to be on top of their team but noticing every area of success and managing contests. With the aid of a Sales Performance Management (SPM) solution, tracking employee progress becomes easy. You can quickly review your employees’ successes and what they are doing well, allowing you to easily use that data to motivate.
To learn more about tactics to motivate your employees and how SPM can help with that, reach out to our experts at info@bluehorizonsgroup.com.