Whether you own a whole retail chain or a single small shop with your own employees, you are not only a business owner but also a team leader. Leading your team with the right motivation techniques can change many aspects of the working environment, and help to foster a more successful business. In this article, we are not going to discuss how exactly to manage your employees, but we will cover the steps necessary to build a successful team of sales representatives, and the journey begins with helping them feel motivated in a variety of ways.

Motivation Beyond Money

 

As business owners or sales representative managers, we often try to motivate our employees with money. The commission is one of the most efficient tools to ensure that employees are driven to work harder, but is it enough? Not really.

Not every motivational tool affects individuals into the same degree. It could be that some of your salespeople are not motivated by the commission because of a lack of belief in their own performance (they believe they have no chance of reaching commission goals, so why bother trying?), or the monotonous nature of striving to achieve the monetary award. Also, using commission as your only motivational tool can damage your organisational culture, and your sales teams will feel like they do not have any other reason to work hard for you. Over the long term, this can create general dissatisfaction among your workers.

The relationships that your sales representatives build with customers creates the foundation of your organisation — not just in terms of individual sales, but also your overall reputation and growth. Your sales representatives are the faces of your business. Therefore, what they think about your business and why they choose to work for you is important too.

If you want to work with a team that will be successful in the long run, you should give your workers another reason to invest in making the business a success, besides money. A good organisational culture can make your employees happy, and it will give them a deeper reason to feel satisfied in their career. However, creating an effective organisational culture requires long-term investment. Providing transparency, a more pleasant work environment, and honest two-way communication between management and employees are just a few of the many of the fundamentals that need to be set in place in order to generate such a positive work culture. If your employees accept and internalise your business’ values, they will work for those values, not just for their pay packet.

Intrinsic Motivation


Employees (and humans in general) always need a personal reason to want to complete a task well. Inner motivation arises from projections we make in our minds about how we want to develop as individuals, and these rewards can come in many forms.. The reason could be economical, to improve in a career, or to be more educated,,. The more motivated we are, the more drive we’ll have to get things done and accomplish our goals. A happier work environment is one that gives employees chance to improve themselves, or a desire to fit into and benefit from a positive organisational culture can be a reason for your workers to feel a greater sense of inner motivated.  

Investing in your employees in terms of education and training can show how much you value their future and success in the organisation. As well as more contented employees, you will create well trained and motivated sales teams that will be of benefit for the future growth of your business. Training opportunities are seen by employees as a marker for improving themselves in their current jobs, and most will want to take advantage. When you an employer provides these opportunities, so your positive reputation amongst your workforce (and their motivation to want to do well for you) grows.

From another motivational standpoint, in order to improve ourselves, we need challenges. When our current job stops challenging us, when our co-workers are not competitive and everything is easy, we tend to lose our motivation to keep striving for greater results. Offering small, achievable challenges can help you to motivate your sales representatives and managers. As part of this idea, organising yearly special competitions and making them a tradition can benefit your organisational culture too. Try to create fun and interesting experiences and offer prizes that your workforce will appreciate, to generate excitement among your employees and encourage them to participate with gusto.

Motivating your sales managers or sales representatives requires an emotionally sincere approach. The more you get to know your employees, the the more you will understand their true interests, problems, and ambitions. This is the best way to find new and exciting motivational tools to boost your team’s level of commitment, and ultimately reach and exceed your overall business goals.