How to create a highly motivated team

Leading or being part of a highly motivated team is a fantastic experience. But one has to be aware of the strategies to motivate A team in general.

Winning is a habit and that is exactly what highly motivated teams are all about. The various strategies to motivate team ensures that the team members are ways ready to push their boundaries. There is a common cause, team members know why, what is expected of them and everybody knows how they are progressing. The team members support each other to achieve and are having great fun on the way to continued success. It is fabulous being on the receiving end too in whatever capacity. The customer experience is second to none. Stuff gets done! A highly motivated team consists of individuals who have their own specific drivers to make it happen day in, day out. The strategies to motivate team, in general, gives people the required nudge to achieve the set targets. An effective manager knows these drivers and uses them to keep performance high. Here are 5 simple strategies every leader should consider when building a highly motivated team.

1. Strategies to Motivate Team In Terms of A Clear Direction and Expectations, that is markets, products, activities, (sales) targets and culture.

Team members need to know the scope and purpose of their roles as well as the overall purpose of the organisation they contribute to. Strategies to motivate the team makes the team members aware of their responsibilities. Here are some questions they would need answering to perform:

  1. What problem does my organisation solve for its customers?
  2. Why was this business started in the first place?
  3. Why do customers come to my organisation rather than the competition?
  4. How do I best contribute to solving these customer problems?
  5. What results am I expected to achieve?
  6. What is acceptable behaviour in this organisation?
  7. What does “good/excellent” look like?
2. Strategies to Motivate The Team in Terms of Product Knowledge

Everybody in the team deserves the best tools and training to perform in their role and strategies to motivate team works towards that end. Relevant product training, process training and skills training are all strong motivators and enablers to top performance. It shows the leader is serious about investing in the team and its members. I recommend we make the knowledge gathering fun and an experience never to forget. Good training is not an just an event.

3. Make Every Part of The Job Fun and Exciting Through Gamification, Challenges and Competition.

At one time, we were all very young at heart, and life was full of fun. Why should work be any different? When you play together, you stay together. One of the sales teams I work with came to life when we repackaged cold calling activity to a dress-up day themed “From Arctic to Equator”. Every completed call warmed us up a bit. It was great fun and the team were motivated to perform. To that end, it is important to note that strategies to motivate team need not follow a given pattern. Any pattern which might be fulfilling the need can be made use of.

4. Monitor Performance and Provide Constructive Feedback.

I call this the “Sat Nav” for teams. Sat Nav is great in the car. Type in your destination and off you go. along with useful, motivating information on the way like ETA, average speed and suggested alternative routes. Team members will get motivation from knowing how well they are doing and how far there is to go. Thus providing feedback become essential. Charts, chats, ringing the sales bell or a flash email all helps. 121s are perfect too,

yet remember: “praise in public, reprimand in private”

5. Celebrate Success!

Success is infectious for teams. Celebrating and recognising individual team and customer success is a huge motivator for all in the team. It pulls everyone forward to more success. One team I work with celebrates every time a customer says: “wow, you guys deliver fab customer service!” Lead your team using these strategies and their motivation will rocket. So will their results. Every team should help driving the whole business forward. I’ve known Gert Scholts for many years. If you want a high performance sales team, he is your man!

gert.scholts@thebestsalescoach.co.uk

#attitude #belief #winning #why #how #what #performance #emotionalstrategy #intellect

Red or Blue

You may have heard of blue ocean strategies where companies aim to deliver products that are unique and yet deliver them at the lowest possible price. The idea is that this powerful combination creates a fantastic demand and leaves any competition behind.

Many companies find themselves in the red ocean though. They interact with the same customers most of the time and competition is fierce. Prices are always under pressure and the associated negotiations are as regular as the annual price list and product catalogue.

For sales people there are some interesting lessons to learn from the blue ocean strategy:

  • Be pro-active and always look for new customers.
  • Deliver value to customer based on their needs
  • Go beyond the obvious needs and capture new opportunities

Are you a blue ocean sales person? If so, congratulations! It is a brilliant position to take

A word of caution if you are in the red ocean.

If you are not aiming to be a blue ocean sales person, you may find out your role may well be on the redundancy list as digital selling applications are coming of age. Clients are increasingly for sales people who help them rather who sell a product.

If you want your sales practices move from red to blue and make more sales, feel free to contact me for a chat.

#blueoceanstrategy #salescoach #creatingvalue

La Ferrari for you for Christmas

Fancy owning a remote controlled La Ferrari and race the living room on Boxing day?

You could, by sharing your sales highlight in 2017 on This LinkedIn post.

Was is beating your targets? Or perhaps you learned a new prospecting technique that improved your cold calling ratios…….

Let me know what your highlight was in 2017 and why in just one sentence starting with: my 2017 highlight was…………………………………

The highlight that inspires me most will receive that beautiful racing red 1:14 scale model RC La Ferrari in time for Christmas.

The picture on the left is the real deal. The one on the right is the one you can win by inspiring others with your sales highlight of 2017.

I’ll decide the UK winner on 8th December so what are you waiting for?

Beat Your Best in October

Here is a simple sales incentive that works every time and gets great sales results. It includes 3 tips for success.

Incentives tend to be won by the guys and girls who perform well regardless. Great for them yet, this all too familiar scenario can affect the rest of the team negatively. In that case a well planned incentive has the adverse effect to what it was intended.

So how do you get the whole team excited,in extreme effort mode, go in motivational overdrive and make more sales than ever before?

Here is an answer: Set the challenge to every sales person to beat their previous best month in percentage terms.

A simple example to show how it can work:

John’s previous best month: £50,000 new sales

Charlie’s previous best month: £ 20,000 new sales

John achieves £60,000 new sales during the incentive. A 20% increase on his previous best.

Charlie achieves £ 27,000 new sales during the incentive. A 28% increase on her previous best.

Charlie wins the incentive. Well done Charlie!

Set the prizes as you see fit.

Why not try this principle for October 2017 to get a great month:

Beat your best month this year in October. Top 3 percentage increasers in the team win!

Here are 3 tips to help you make it work:

  1. Introduce the incentive with a lot of motivational noise
  2. Have clear and simple rules
  3. Update the team member’s progress weekly and daily by the end of the month

When I ran an incentive like this, 83% of the team increased their performance!

If you want any advice or ideas on motivating a sales team to top performance, feel free to contact me.

www.thebestsalescoach.co.uk

gert.scholts@thebestsalescoach.co.uk

#salesteamincentives #salesincentives

Pointing fingers

Excuses in the worlds of sales, who needs them…………

It is easy to fall into the trap of blaming others for not getting the sale.

And when you believe the prospect’s attitude and behaviour is the reason why you did not get the sale, you might as well decide that the sales profession is not for you. It probably is not.

Here is the deal: Products do not sell themselves. It is the sales person’s job to convince the buyer the product/service being sold, is the best solution.

Don’t blame the customer, competition, traffic jam, marketing material, laptop or problems at home. When you point your fingers at others, three fingers still point at you. Don’t complain, condemn or criticize. Instead, pick yourself up, learn from the experience and go for it again. That way you will succeed.

Practical tips and sales ideas

#Salestips #motivate

5 simple accountability strategies

Clear direction is vital for any sales business.

The whole sales team needs to know what direction they are heading. Clear accountability comes a close second. In Sales this means every sales person takes total responsibility for delivering their agreed sales targets. There are no excuses!

It is the sole purpose of their role.

Here are 5 simple strategies to achieve accountability:

1) Agree sales targets

Agree clear activities and targets with each individual and for the sales team. Link these targets to the overall plan for the week, month or year.

2) Be S.M.A.R.T about targets

Targets work best when specific and measurable, attainable and timed. Write them down if need be and give them to each sales person. And make sure the targets are in the sales person’s remit.

Net Profit is not one of them, Revenue and minimum Gross Profit are. Link any bonuses to financial outcomes.

3) Trust the team

Trust your sales people with total responsibility for the group of customers they are account managers for or when chasing pure new business prospects.

Both “farmers and hunters” should have ownership of the relevant targets for their allocated customers.

4) Expect and Inspect

Once you have set clear targets and expectations, make sure you pro actively support progress.

During the one-to-one meetings I have with sales people, and in group sales meetings, results are reviewed, strategies are refined and we celebrate small and big successes. Everybody in the team shares their progress and we tackle any hurdles there and then.

5) Look forward

As long as the individual sales person wants to succeed, there is always a way forward. Too much looking back can damage morale. When coaching future sales champions I do not dwell on the past. We work on what we can do better and push ahead to target achievement.

Using these strategies over time has helped me to create high performance sales teams.

If you have particular issues,challenges or solutions related to accountability I glad hear about them.

gert.scholts@thebestsalescoach.co.uk

#accountmanagement #salesteammanagement #Accountabilityinsales