Mastering Sales Motivation: How to seize it, maximize it, and manage inevitable dips

Wouldn’t it be great if your salespeople could remain highly motivated at all times, no matter what comes their way (even a worldwide pandemic or economic recession)? In a perfect world, your salespeople would come in every morning supercharged with energy. They would do more than expected of them every single day. They would blow their quota to shreds each month. And your company would crush revenue goals year over year. What an incredible difference it would make if motivation never wavered. In reality, motivation comes and goes. It’s not just true for sales associates, but for all humans. Everyone wakes up on the wrong side of the bed from time to time, even back when humans slept on little floor mats. 

The real question for sales managers is not, “How do I make sure every team member is motivated ALL the time?” but rather, “How do I manage the motivation cycles of my team so that we can still meet revenue goals?” Asking this question will help sales managers acknowledge that there is a motivation cycle and better support each salesperson on their team, wherever they are in that cycle. This approach is especially relevant in a market downturn like the one we’re in now because motivation can dip more frequently. 

Help Associates Seize Internal Motivation

If you ask a salesperson what they want from their job, you’ll probably hear them answer, “money”. Compensation significantly motivates salespeople. But to help associates tap into the wellspring of motivation, they need to be clear on what they actually want. Because if it were simply the money, then there’s not a lot they’d be able to do with it except maybe swim in a big pool of gold coins like the Disney character, Scrooge. In today’s electronic banking system, money looks basically like numbers on a screen. Your salespeople don’t want to stare at their wealth on a computer screen. They want to do something with it! Sales managers can bolster motivation if they prioritize helping their producers see and taste what they want to do with the money they make.

TaskHuman can help managers take steps to do this at a rate that makes a financial difference for the company. The sales coaches on TaskHuman’s coaching platform address motivation as a key part of the coaching process when working with individuals. They know if salespeople can’t visualize their personal goals, they’re far less likely to meet the corporate goals. TaskHuman’s coaching platform can be an effective tool for sales managers to help their salespeople, no matter the motivational ups and downs. It puts salespeople in touch with on-demand, highly personal sales coaching to support them in every emotional state. Coaches help producers maximize the impact when their motivation is high and hang on to what’s left when motivation is low. Sales managers can focus more on other corporate-minded management tasks like pipeline reviews and communicating the team’s agenda. The sales coaches on TaskHuman’s coaching platform can help salespeople focus on achieving their personal goals in a 1:1 coaching relationship that can drive their productivity level for the company higher while supporting the employee’s individual growth. 

Sales professionals in the beginning stages of their career have different personal goals than someone further along. Coaches can help salespeople at different stages identify what they want to do with their paychecks through life’s changes, whether it’s to travel across the world, buy a home, or put kids through college. Then they can help associates adjust their plans to achieve their goals as they change and simultaneously help them keep the corporate agenda on track. 

Build In Breaks 

So, it’s clear that personal goals are critical to reaching any level of motivation that consistently moves the revenue needle. Additionally, managers can use sales contests and retreats to inject fun into the high-pressure department. It can be helpful to let sales associates pick their rewards for winning contests and when they reach a team or individual revenue goal. These tactics are great for the environmental culture and sales team building. But they won’t stave off dips in motivation. Dips will come to even the best, most dedicated, and talent-rich sales department. Dips can hit entire sales teams collectively and, more commonly, by individuals. 

That’s because people don’t stay in hunt mode 100% of the time. If salespeople don’t build in a break from time to time, the break will come by way of tired and wandering minds, low morale, and even sickness. Taking a break isn’t a sign of low motivation. In fact, star sales producers have to exercise great discipline to pull back and allow themselves to rest. It’s hard for them to resist the urge to push forward unrestrained. Breaks can reinvigorate the mind, restore the body and uncover creativity. Rest also allows the mind to process new information so true learning can happen. TaskHuman can help salespeople become more intentional about taking constructive breaks. Sales associates can schedule sessions with a personal health and wellness coach and different hobby coaches, which would block that time in their work calendar as an appointment so they can better commit to the meeting. 

When sales managers introduce TaskHuman’s coaching platform to their departments, they can shore up the integration process if they verbally give teams their blessing and explain that when sales associates take care of themselves, it benefits them and the company. For many sales professionals, this will go down like a tall glass of cool water. Some of them need to see you champion their health the way TaskHuman allows, so they can finally feel okay about putting their health first. You can help salespeople stay rested and resilient with the support of TaskHuman’s dedicated coaching experts. 

Cultivate Discipline

In addition to making room for and leveraging dips in workplace motivation, sales associates need to know how to push through them because discipline matters the most when motivation is at its lowest. Salespeople need to have their activity plan in place and commit to working through their plan even when they don’t feel highly motivated. TaskHuman’s sales coaches can help individual sales associates devise a plan that breaks down what they need to do  daily, weekly, and monthly to achieve their personal goals on the date they set forth. Then when a salesperson is battling low motivation, they can check in with their coach and focus on the discipline they need to make it through. Their sales coach will reinforce the associate’s activity goals at the day and weekly level and encourage them to focus on accomplishing the smaller activities  to reach their bigger, grander personal goals. 

Take Action Today

“Low motivation” is a bad word in many sales cultures, but talking about it openly and taking informed steps to deal with it could be the best thing that ever happened to sales teams everywhere. Why not meet the motivation challenge head-on? The difference may be that your salespeople more effectively ride out waves of high motivation, as well as dig deep and commit to reaching benchmarks even when motivation is low. Let TaskHuman help your revenue generators! 

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