Align Expectations and Resources to Maximize Sales Team Motivation
Home 9 Leader's Digest 9 Align Expectations and Resources to Maximize Sales Team Motivation

by | Feb 17, 2019 | Leader's Digest

Who doesn’t love a fresh new sales year, unblemished and full of potential! Unfortunately, for many sales organizations, the sales year is doomed before it’s begun because of a misalignment between the sales business plan and the resources to achieve these goals which can hinder sales team motivation.

“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”

This widely referenced quote has been attributed to many, including Henry Ford and best-selling author Tony Robbins. The logic is so sound: If we want a different outcome, we need to change something in our behavior. Short of replacing our entire sales team, the desired change will need to be driven by improving the capabilities or capacity of our existing sales team. What provisions do you have in place to drive improvement in 2019?

Don’t just expect Growth, nurture it

How often do we as sales leaders put in place growth objectives without any provision for additional skills, training or resources by which to attain that growth? Talk about sales team motivation‚ how must our sales team members feel about higher performance expectations without additional tools in their tool belt? If we expect better sales performance without additional training or resources, the implication is that the sales team just needs to work harder. This dynamic sets the stage for failure and frustration, as evidenced by declining annual sales quota attainment across the board and current rates of sales team turnover.

Provide strategic, targeted development

Naturally, from the vantage point of a sales training provider, I can and do speak to the need for authentic skill development to drive sales performance improvement. There is simply no denying the cause-and-effect between skill development and sales performance; between sales performance and sales team motivation. The first step is to identify the greatest development need among your sales team. Are they in need of foundational selling or relationship-building skills? Or, with foundational selling skills in place, is the development need more specialized; for example, improved skills relative to negotiations, target account planning, enterprise sales or selling to the c-suite?

With a new sales year under way, we need to ensure our sales business plan goes beyond numbers on paper to address how the growth will be fueled. It is essential to sales team motivation and confidence, and ultimately, to our 2019 sales performance.

To learn how to motivate your sales team and provide them with the tools they to reach your sales goals read our article: 3 Key Ingredients for Sales Training Success

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