What Sales Leaders Should Do to Keep Salespeople Motivated

How to keep salespeople motivated?

There are a lot of salespeople out there, who are looking to sell, to understand how and what they should be selling, what they should be doing differently, during this very strange period that we’re in due to the pandemic. What is the first thing Sales Leaders should be looking to do in order to get their salespeople focused and take the stress levels down? John Golden hosted the interview with Kevin Davis, the President and Sales Manager Trainer in Topline Leadership Inc. with the area of expertise in best practices for Sales Team Managers, working with companies that want to grow. Over the years, he has worked with lots of Sales Managers.

This expert insight interview explores:

• What do Sales Managers expect the salespeople to be doing?
• What should they be doing differently
• Communication as a key

What do Sales Managers expect the salespeople to be doing?

The top 3 reasons why employees don’t do what we want them to do are:

1. They don’t know how to do it
2. They don’t know why to do it
3. They don’t know what to do

Many sales managers use the right type of direction only when they hire or de-hire someone, and there is a big gap in what to do in between. Now is a particularly important time for Sales Managers to revisit exactly what they expect their salespeople to be doing, in terms of the activities, in terms of the skills and knowledge they need. They might be looking at requiring some new prospecting skills, more customer care checking, frequency to retain the existing customers.

What should they be doing differently

Sometimes, the Sales Managers assume that people know what they need to do. At this time, many salespersons don’t know what to do and wondering should they switch to another market segment. The objective is changing. If they identify the opportunities where they really have a good chance of winning, maybe now is the time to over-resource them, and to give them every competitive advantage to win those.
This is a great opportunity for coaching. The salespeople probably have extra time now, or they are extra attentive.

Communication as a key

Certainly, one of the sources of motivation is that salespeople want to be part of something that is bigger than themselves. What is a long-term goal and how is pandemic going to change the goal and visions where you want your sales team to be in the future. Communication is important, not only the group setting but “one on one”.

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.”

The salespeople are looking at the Sales Manager as to the sales team leader. It’s vital to pay attention to the best salespeople and what they are doing. It is conceivable that what was sales-excellent in the past, will not be sales-excellent in the future. Communication is the antidote to fear and uncertainty.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.