Life is all about energy, and if your sales team has low, negative energy, then it’s inevitable that it’ll impact their performance. After all, sales teams have to put up with a lot of rejection through the course of their work — and the only way to take that rejection in their stride is to have a happy, positive work environment.
You can’t expect your sales team members to be walking around with smiles on their faces all the time. With that said, there are plenty of things you can do that can help to nudge morale in the right direction. We’ll run through some of the most effective strategies below.
Recognize When It’s Low
The goal isn’t to have passable work morale. The goal is to have good work morale. And it’s much easier to reach that level if morale hasn’t already fallen through the floor. As with most things, it’s better to invest in your team’s morale before things reach breaking point.
You can normally gauge morale just by being observant. Does everyone seem to be walking around with their heads down? Has laughter left the office? If you see that things have become slightly more miserable, then take action — a dose of positivity and enthusiasm can be all that’s required to snap people out of the funk.
Reward Great Performance
People in sales get satisfaction from doing a job well done — but that doesn’t mean that they don’t also appreciate it when others recognize what they’ve achieved. Offering rewards and benefits to high-flying team members can do wonders for keeping morale high. After all, employees always enjoy when they, along with the company, benefit from their efforts.
Saying thanks, offering bonuses, and giving time off is a surefire way to give the workplace a healthy dose of positivity.
Make Their Jobs Easier
Sales team members can often feel like they’re continually pushing a boulder up a hill. While there’s no way to turn their work into a walk in the park, you can make things easier. In this day and age, that mostly comes down to incorporating the right tools and services into your sales processes. That could involve working with a company that offers outbound SDR services for better lead generation or finding the right reporting tools and software. In doing so, you’ll be removing many of the pain points that your team experiences — and also empower them to do their best work.
Listen To Their Feedback
Morale can suffer when communication is poor. While you’ll be sharing a lot of information with your team members, that’s not really communication, which should be a two-way street. Being open to hearing what your team has to say is essential since it shows them that they have a voice within the company.
Sales employees — in fact, all employees — thrive when they know they’re being listened to. So listen to their concerns, and then tell them what you’re going to do about it.
Set Manageable Targets
Morale is always lower when targets haven’t been met. While it’s inevitable that this will happen from time to time, if it’s becoming a regular thing, then the problem won’t be with the sales team — the issue will be the targets themselves.
Being ambitious as a company is a good thing, but if it’s wildly ambitious, then your sales team will find it difficult to keep up with the high expectations placed on them. It’s best to set targets that are challenging but manageable and also to communicate why those targets have been set. Employees are more likely to buy into their mission if they understand how it fits in with the long-term vision of the business.
Hire Positive People
Sales team employees are competitive, but they’re still a team. Whoever’s in that team will contribute to the overall atmosphere of the workplace. While your primary objective may be to hire people who have shown they have the experience and expertise to get results, it’s also worth paying at least some attention to their general attitude and demeanor. If it feels like they’re going to be hard for other team members to get along with, then they may have a disproportionate impact on morale.
Limit the Meetings
Your sales team only has a finite amount of energy, and they’re much happier when they’re spending it on things that push their work forward.
In the vast majority of cases, sales team members believe that meetings are a waste of time. While it’s inevitable that you’ll need to have some meetings, it’s best to look at ways to keep them to a minimum. There are a lot of meetings that could have been an email.
It also pays to be mindful of how long meetings drag on. Nothing will drain the life out of a sales team employee than sitting in a meeting that seems to be going on and on with no clear end in sight.
Let Them Work
If you’ve hired correctly, then you’ll have a team of highly capable sales team members who have what it takes to reach their sales targets.
But they’ll only be able to do that if they have the space and freedom to work. Many sales employees complain that they have too many things on their plates and are unable to focus on the task at hand. Others complain that they are continually micromanaged by supervisors.
Whenever possible, give your sales team the time, space, and freedom they need to focus. It won’t just make them feel happier about their work — it’ll also lead to better results.
Encourage Time Off
Finally, look at encouraging your sales team members to take time off, both through taking breaks and paid time off work. Employees are more likely to give it their all when they’re in the office if they know that they have a break coming up, while PTO can give them the space they need to really rest and recuperate. Plus, everyone’s morale is better when they’ve been lying on a beach for a week!
