7 Tips to Motivate Sales and Drive Revenue

Sales is a notoriously tough job. So, when you find talented and driven team members, it’s essential to set goals for them plus the support to get there. But, goals always come first in order to motivate sales and drive revenue. Nothing will set your team up for success or failure more than how realistic and attainable their goals are.

Knowledge is motivation’s main ingredient. Know everyone on your team’s quirks, including what inspires and triggers them. There’s no one strategy that will work for everyone, so familiarity and honest communication will be key.

Tough love may energize one person to push themselves more while sending another into a self-doubt spiral. And, as entertaining and relatable as Glengarry Glen Ross is for all sales professionals (and marketers, advertisers, designers, account managers…), this kind of aggressive, hypermasculine, call-out-culture isn’t the move anymore. It’s as outdated as their blackboard used to track leads.

With this in mind, here are seven tips to motivate sales and drive revenue for your team:

1. Find the sweet spot: Set goals that are too easy and your team might become bored and lazy. Too lofty and you will likely stress and discourage them. Start with a number that’s on the high end of achievable based on past trends and time of year.
2. Use history: Review the past several years of data and identify highs, lows, and trends. Then, use this information to set new goals. Comparing this quarter to the same quarter last year often yields better results than the directly previous one.
3. Stay on top of it: Examine goals quarterly or monthly. Work as a team to implement new strategies or change if needed. If you never check in on metrics, and cannot meet your targets, your team will have no recourse to adjust and improve.
4. Be flexible: Every employee is different. Bonuses might get one person fired up, while another prefers paid time off, (though everyone deserves recognition and praise). Avoid blanketly distributing cookie-cutter motivators.
5. Be consistent: Rewards to motivate sales and drive revenue won’t be effective unless you are consistent. Be accountable for ensuring the team gets rewarded in a timely manner, so no one has to go hunting for their bonuses.
6. Promote collaboration: Help the sales team build a rapport outside of the office. This will help them relate to one another and make them more likely to work together for group success.
7. Offer advancement opportunities: Chances to attend trainings, conferences, trade shows, and advanced certifications prove your commitment to professional growth and development. Individuals that feel valued are more secure in their roles and have the confidence to go after internal promotions.

Finally, whatever you do, DO NOT micromanage.

There is no other way guaranteed to de-motivate and make an employee question their abilities faster. It shows that you don’t trust your team, undermines your employees’ confidence, and more often than not, thoroughly annoys them.

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