How to manage your sales team? Tough part: motivation

Submitted by Karol on Mon, 06/05/2017 - 13:16
Selling is not an easy job to do and anybody who has ever come across this subject would agree with this statement. With this subject we face many counteractive situations, reasons and circumstances. For example on one hand we want to sell and find as many new members as possible but on the other hand we want to be fair, honest and build positive brand imagewith them.
How to manage your sales team?

Selling is not an easy job to do and anybody who has ever come across this subject would agree with this statement. With this subject we face many counteractive situations, reasons and circumstances. For example on one hand we want to sell and find as many new members as possible but on the other hand we want to be fair, honest and build positive brand imagewith them. We also want to give some extra tools to our team to help them to ‘close the deal’ while selling so we give extra discounts, gifts and options. However if we discount our basic service we simply lower its value and what is more it is harder with each month to keep the member expecting  the same offer. To make the whole thing even more complicated we all know we have different types of people in our sales team and everyone expects different incentives. Smart gym managers shuffle motivational tools in order to reach every group of salespeople.

Average men

The biggest group in number is typically average, middle class one. What motivates those type of peoplebest? I would recommend sales system based on different sales levels which helps to leverage average salesperson to higher effectiveness levels. Those levels can be easily set up in PerfectGym management software and you can monitor its efficiency on a daily basis. Easy access to data can also help to adjust levels in order to make them meaningful for all the team members. What is interesting, for average salespersonit is not only money that works well – material prizes such as trips and gifts will be also highly satisfactory.

Straggler

In a stragglers group we can find both new comers who need extra training and also old-timers who are burnt out. Less motivated or less capable ones top up this group. It is a funny thing  that even they can brag about good results if a proper incentive is given. Stragglers can be  effectively motivated with mid-term bonuses i.e.: monthly, quarterly. Studies show that weaker salespeople need more frequent results verification. This enables them to focus on effects, not to be distracted and reach goals. Another good method to add extra boost is peer pressure. New ambitious members joining team can naturally encourage those slower ones to catch up and work harder.

Record breakers

All in all, our incentive plan should focus on those best ones who are responsible for making your sales budget and who reach highest effectiveness levels. Best salesmen should decide by themselves how much they can earn, so there should be no limit for their provision. Another effective tool is higher provision after exceeding sales plan so the earned percentage goes higher in clearly described way when sales goals are surpassed. Researches show  that extra prizes are also well-perceived but a crucial aspect is that they cannot be won by only one person but rather few. Contests among salespeople where there can be more than one winner are far more effective than contests with formula ‘the winner takes it al’.

To sum up, what is really important while working with a sales team is measuring their success. PerfectGym software gives you an opportunity as an owner or a manager to count all aspects of selling and providing right service to your customers. Checking the data and combining it with your budget plans should give the right answer how to reward your team.