by Kamryn Adams

Created on: June 26, 2009   Last Updated: July 18, 2009

The greatest challenge and most rewarding experience of my corporate career was leading a team of 100 sales representatives and seven sales managers. When you are the leader of an organization of any size, your highest priority is keeping your folks motivated. If your team is motivated, sales will come. "How to motivate your sales staff" is a bit simplistic. More appropriately the task is how to motivate the members of your staff, not the staff as a whole. Each individual on the team is possibly motivated by something unique.

Most sales people are competitive by nature, so it's easy to throw a contest their way. A lucrative contest may motivate those who seek recognition and money, but once the contest is over, can you sustain the success model? Probably not. Money and recognition are the tangible output of what motivates people. Strong motivational leaders look deeper than that. If someone is motivated by money, is it because they provide for their family? Care for a sick parent? Or have a fashion addiction out of this world? When someone is motivated by recognition, what are they telling us? They want to be valued. Looking at the underlying motivation will sustain consistent performance in a sales team.

By looking at the underlying motivation, a leader changes the work environment to produce consistent results. Consistent results produce money and recognition for the company and the individual. We still get to the tangible output but it is by changing the way you do business, rather than a temporary fix. For example, as a sales leader I made all internal team meetings casual. Men could wear jeans and sneakers with a casual shirt, if they wished. Women could take the opportunity to dress up a little and show off those new killer boots. I began all off-site meetings at noon. This allowed people to spend one less night away from home. In addition, I didn't require team dinners. I simply made myself available to have dinner with anyone who wished to join me. This way, the team could spend time away from the boss and build relationships, which is something different than "team building".

Many strong sales professionals are motivated by recognition. You could do a contest and provide individuals with a shot at one time recognition, or you could start a peer recognition program. Peer recognition programs mean a lot to sales professionals. It says to them that their colleagues value them. Who doesn't like that? Members of the team can award those who have made an impact on the business, the team morale, or extended a helping hand to a counterpart. This fosters team collaboration and accountability among peers. There is no greater performance than of a team that wants to win for itself. Once again, peer recognition becomes part of the work environment and team culture. It sustains that motivation and morale and encourages high performance.

Determining how to motivate a sales staff is not a perfect science. There aren't three, seven, or ten steps to keeping your sales team motivated and productive. It takes leadership and insight into who the people that work with you really are at the core. Don't take the easy answers of money and recognition, dig deeper and your team will dig in and perform for you.

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