When times are good, motivating your staff is relatively easy, as the results speak for themselves. However, in troubled times, when closed won deals begin to shrink, so can motivation.
Sales leaders, therefore, need to be able to motivate salespeople in both the good and bad times. Here’s how you can use a behavioural approach to continually motivate salespeople.
Understanding salespeople preferences
Understanding how your salespeople want to be treated is key to getting the most out of them. That means assessing each individual to create tailored coaching, communication and motivation plans.
But how can you understand salesperson behaviours better? There are lots of ways to gather this data, but the easiest method of all is simply asking them. Find out whether each person in your team prefers public praise or private recognition, or if they prefer impromptu meetings or time to prepare for them. Or if they prefer interactive group training or 1-1 individual training.
Then, think about their personality traits. Is the salesperson dominating? Is the salesperson confident? Is the salesperson a team player? Is the salesperson more of a thinker or a doer. All this information will help you build a better picture of how to get the best out of each individual, all the time.
Using the behavioural information
Once you’ve got a good understanding of each person’s behavioural traits, you can now tailor how you communicate with and coach them. For example, for someone in your team who likes to do things their own way and learn for themselves, micromanaging them and hammering home strict processes with little room for freedom will only serve to demotivate them. Others, however, may thrive on iron-tight processes and crave structure over freedom.
Additionally, there may be many types of personalities within your team. So, team bonding is as important as your own relationship with each employee. You want everyone to be a good fit and feel comfortable working alongside their team. Help each person understand each other better – facilitate communication, accountability, respect, and self-awareness. Great teams help each other stay motivated.
Today’s offices are inclusive and diverse. These differences should be celebrated rather than denied. Working without fear of being yourself helps set every person in the right direction. Additionally, you’ll find a team who’s comfortable with each other will share things more: Fears, challenges, frustrations, tips, solutions and so on.
Building momentum
Knowing what makes each person tick is vital to creating a motivated and engaged team, regardless of revenue numbers. And when you hit that achievement, you want to make sure the momentum lasts. Resilience is key here.
Change and adversity are stressful at the best of times. And both can create demotivation. The best teams are resilient, with the ability to come through tough times stronger, and together. But to achieve that, your team needs to understand each other’s behavioural style and personality traits, what triggers stress, and how to avoid counterproductive behaviours.
So, in summary, while your own relationship with each individual is vital to engagement and motivation (let’s face it, nobody wants to have a bad relationship with their boss), have a positive team dynamic also plays an important part. You can communicate and push individuals the right way, but the overall team spirit is what will really get them through tough times. Motivated teams generally smash their goals, regardless of what challenges they face. Creating that dynamic is a difficult thing to do, but when you get it right, it’s one of the most powerful assets in ensuring a driven team. It all begins with learning and understanding people, their fears, their needs, and what drives them. Simple sales skills, really.
