“Treat your salesperson like you would treat your most important customer — because he is!” says Colleen Stanley, the founder and president of SalesLeadership Inc. Of course, Stanley is exactly right: Building a team of exceptional people is only part of the equation for sales success. Nurturing those people to ensure they are exceptional for years to come is even more important.
Employee burnout is a serious problem, and Psychology Today reported the effects of this issue are sometimes as severe as panic attacks and emergency room visits. According to the Mayo Clinic, job burnout is “a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity.”
So how do you keep your sales team going? The answer is not more free coffee or pizza parties or field trips to Dave & Buster’s. Now, there’s nothing wrong with culture-building activities, but if you want to truly supercharge your staff, you will need to model the energy you want to see from your workers and recognize your team members for their achievements.
Ramp up your energy
How can you produce that energy for your team? Motivational speaker, author, and salesman Zig Ziglar suggested having a positive attitude in all situations. At times, sales will be slow. Business News Daily points out that sales team members typically hear “no” more than “yes.” However, you must not slow the momentum in these moments. If you display a grim attitude, how is your sales team supposed to keep hope alive?
Having the right products that your salespeople truly believe in can help keep their interest high. Gloveworks® heavy-duty nitrile gloves with raised diamond texture are easy to get behind — and they deliver high margins on recurring sales.
Another question to ask is: What are your sales team members doing each day? Do they see the value in their work? If you answered “no” to the second question, ask yourself whether your team is engaged in high-payoff activities.
How many meetings do you need?
Throughout the day, as you talk with your team members, everyone may appear busy. With their schedules and to-do lists full, you may not think twice about their productivity and motivation. However, how many of those items in their lists or schedules are necessary? Are they booked for meetings they do not need to attend? Do they have nonessential duties? Are they drowning in data busywork intended to justify ROI?
If so, these employees can feel as though they are not hitting milestones despite how busy they are. As Success magazine publisher and motivational speaker Darren Hardy says, a busy employee is not necessarily a productive one. This issue stems from managers as well as staff.
Are you overloading your team with too many unnecessary tasks? If so, limit their duties to high-payoff activities, which first and foremost include selling. This means calling leads, following up, and becoming familiar with accounts. The more they learn about potential customers, the more likely those customers are to pay off.
Do not skimp on recognition
To further show your team’s value, set goals and reward your staff for reaching these milestones. Bloomberg Businessweek says employee engagement is key to motivation, and one way to keep workers engaged is to have clear objectives. How many new contacts should a team member obtain each week? How many lead conversions should occur each month?
Goals give your sales team clear markers for achievement, especially when those objectives are tied to high-payoff activities. But you cannot stop at setting goals. Sure, your team members will have a personal sense of value when they hit their quotas, but you must display that value from the company’s perspective.
In a keynote address delivered to SPEAK Inc., sales and sales management expert and motivational speaker Jack Daly emphasized the value of recognition, particularly for employees who go above and beyond to address client needs and ensure repeat business. Recognition must be a large part of your company’s culture and values.
Team achieve sales success together
These are outstanding individuals, so how do you make them feel exceptional? Not only should this encouragement come from the management level, but you should also foster an environment of peer-to-peer support, according to Forbes. Ensure your team members are uplifting each other.
The benefits of peer-to-peer coaching include:
- It allows your “B” players to learn from your stars.
- Excellent performers receive reinforcement and rewards.
- You, the manager, have pressure taken off of.
- Reps enjoy higher engagement.
- Trusted relationships develop, which helps build a stronger team.
- Reps become more self-aware.
Give your sales team the tools to succeed! AMMEX’s Sales Acceleration Solution provides the marketing and sales support you need to help grow your glove sales and substantially increase your profits.
B2B distributors: add disposable gloves to your catalog and watch your sales take off. Contact AMMEX today to speak with one of our specialists!