The 1-Hour Sales Leader – The Top 5 Sales Motivators You Must Know

In this action guide, we will learn how to get the best out of your sales people by applying top 5 sales motivators successfully.

We’ll discover these 5 sales motivators:

1. Recognition of Outstanding Performance
2. Promotional Advancement Opportunity
3. Management Encouragement
4. Personal Bonus Incentives
5. Incentives as Commissions

Let’s Get Started!

Introduction

Your role as a sales manager is to give on-the-job coaching to the sales force by making frequent joint visits.

Let the sales people tell you their problems, listen first and then advice afterwards.

A coach helps people understand the problem and find the solution themselves.

Avoid “telling” people what is wrong and what to do, they are looking to you for understanding and guidance.

The joint visits should mainly be an excuse for you to reinforce the good things that you see the person doing.

Your sales people should look forward to your coming along.

Of course, on these visits you can also define the weaknesses where more formal training is needed.

Money spend on re-training your sales people in selling techniques is one of the most effective investments you can make.

 How to Get the Best Out of Your Sales People – The Top 5 Motivators

Studies about sales force motivation in the US, showed that the top 5 motivators for sales personnel, ranked in descending order were:

1. Recognition of Outstanding Performance
2. Promotional Advancement Opportunity
3. Management Encouragement
4. Personal Bonus Incentives
5. Incentives as Commissions

1. Recognition of Outstanding Performance

Recognition or positive feedback can take many forms and what is positive for one person could be negative for another.

The simplest way is for you to just recognize that the sales person has something good:

• Sold Products
• Increased Prices
• Found Prospects
• Collected Due Payments
• Solved Problems
• Identified Critical Competitor Moves

Despite what most sales managers think, however, monetary rewards are not the primary motivator for people.

 2. Promotional Advancement Opportunity

Every good sales force must be nurtured and developed.

It is not enough to “throw training” at employees and hope for the best.

The secret is for you to identify the things the successful sales people do and then focus on making them trainer for helping others to learn from their success stories.

Here are the secrets of sales superstars:

• Outstanding sales people think from the customers point of view.
• They’re advisors, consultants and partners of their key customers.
• Top performers ask better questions thereby gaining better information about customer needs.
• Sales superstars manage their time and territory coverage more effectively than others.

To make your other sales people sales superstars, you’ll move them from:

• Product Driven to Customer Driven
• Buyer/Sell Driven to Business Partner Driven
• Selling Features to Selling Value
• Spending Time to Time Management

You’ll focus your promotional advancement on developing these critical skills among your sales staff by using the train-the-trainer principle.

 3. Management Encouragement

Management of the sales force differs from other management positions in that the sales people are very often geographically spread over a large area, and the opportunity for meeting face to face is limited.

As a result, many sales managers tend to manage sales people on monthly results rather than the way they perform their job.

However, with a systematic approach and with modern communication methods available, you can manage a large group of sales people using the sales performance management methods.

It allows your sales people to operate with the minimum supervisions while staying goal oriented and highly motivated.

4. Personal Bonus Incentives

The most, costly reward a company can give to the sales people is a commission or bonus systematically.

Despite what most sales managers think, however, monetary rewards are not the prime motivator for sales people.

Small things done frequently have a much bigger effect on motivation, provided that the sales person is being compensated fairly in the first place.

Bonuses can be given frequently such as for:

• Acquiring new accounts
• New or renewed contracts
• Annually based on performance results

5. Incentives as Commissions

Commissions are usually paid to sales people on a monthly or quarterly basis depending on some sales criteria.

They are linked to a percentage of the revenue, volume, profitability or any other measure.

It is important to remember that whatever you decide to link the commissions to will be the focus of the sales person’s attention.

Companies that pay commissions on products but not on services are in effect directing the sales people to concentrate on selling products.

Make sure that they don’t start cutting prices to selling volumes.

 

Getting Started

Your job as sales manager is to become a coach thereby brining the best out of your sales people.

Here is a checklist of what you should do to be a good sales coach:

• Congratulate people who have achieved or surpassed their personal targets of the month, quarter or year
• Give simple rewards to those who have reached their targets
• Avoid competitions where only ONE person wins
• Use these Performance Improving Tools:
  • Joint Visits
  • Sales Performance Management
  • Train-the-Trainer Tutorials
  • Support from Application Experts
  • Improving Performance Based Criteria as Planning, Number of Visits, Number of Quotations, Resolving Problems
• Give Positive Feedback
• Reward Efforts on Results
• Identify Motivators of Each Sales Person
• Identify and Organize Individual Training Programs

You can visit our website for choosing a tailored program.
www.rapidknowhow.com

How did you like this short action guide? Which of the top motivators do you use the most? Let me know by leaving a comment on our website. Thanks!

Today we’ve learned how to get the best out of your sales people by applying the 5 top motivators successfully.

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