12 Powerful Strategies to Motivate Sales Team & Boost Performance

How to motivate a sales team? It’s a question asked by veteran sales managers and one that’s often met with eye-rolls and head-scratching. 

The role of sales is more important than ever before. A company’s ability to hit target revenue numbers, increase leads and boost profits relies almost entirely on a strong and motivated sales team. But with the demands for greater pressure and results heavier than ever, motivating your sales teams to deliver can be challenging. 

Providing proper strategies to motivate your sales team is the key to realizing long-term sales success. There are a million opinions on how to motivate a sales team. You can give out prizes, set up a competition, promote or demote them or threaten to sack and replace them. There is no one way to motivate; whatever works for you and your team is the best. Read our blog to explore some tried and tested strategies to motivate your sales team. 

How to Motivate a Sales Teams: 8 Tried & Tested Strategies to Boost the Sales Team’s Morale 

Motivating sales teams is a tricky business. Ensuring that you motivate your sales force doesn't have to be complicated. Here are 8 tried and tested strategies to motivate your sales team and keep them happy. 

1. Build trust with team members 

Trust is necessary for motivation. Team members lacking faith in their leadership are unlikely to achieve inspired success. The sales manager should create trust from the beginning of the relationship. The members should, then, nurture this trust continuously. Honesty and transparency are essential building blocks to trust. 

2. Let team members decide on management style 

Sales managers need to be flexible with their management style. It's always beneficial to understand that each individual is unique. Individuals should adopt suitable management styles. Team members will appreciate a sales manager willing to adapt their management style to fit the needs and personalities of members. 

3. Be attentive to the goals of team members 

You will need to know what drives the efforts of team members before you can motivate them. Understand what each team member wishes to accomplish in both their business and personal lives. This action will serve two purposes. First, you will gain a better insight into what kind of person you are managing. And secondly, you will have a better idea of what types of things will prove motivational for the person. 

4. Be sure team members take care of basic needs

The efforts of team members will suffer if they are not mindful of their basic human needs. The success or failure of your sales team could very well come down to team members' eating, sleeping, and exercise habits. 

When team members become too consumed with thoughts of success in their work life, these needs are sometimes neglected. This approach, many times, will have the opposite effect, however. For example, the team member who does not eat and rest appropriately over time may find tasks like virtual bookkeeping become more cumbersome. 

5. Set regular goals 

Different goals drive different people. Setting regular goals is one of the proven strategies to motivate your sales team and keep them on the right track. You might find that some team members respond to sales contests between team members. The role certain people play in team success as a whole motivates them. And for some, the motivation could simply be money. Incentives should motivate employees based on their daily, weekly, and monthly preferences. 

6. Find the issue 

A sales manager is responsible for two distinct types of motivation: the individual and the group's motivation. When sales are sagging, you should determine how many of your team members seem to be discouraged. If the number is small, these individuals probably have individual issues that need to be addressed. If more than just a couple of team members are low in spirits, there could be a team-wide problem. 

7. Allow team members to choose rewards

Recognizing and rewarding your sales force is one of the easiest and most effective ways to motivate them and improve their performance. If done correctly, rewards not only create positive results for your organization but also can increase employee retention and improve productivity. 

Who better to pick rewards for well-performing salespeople than the salespeople themselves? A rep that picks his own sales target, the time frame to achieve the sales goal, and a reward that is reasonable, will have plenty of motivation to achieve the goal. 

8. Group rewards 

At times, the best rewards will be the rewards your sales team can enjoy as a group. For example, a team lunch, office party, or awards ceremony boosts team members' morale. In addition, the group's efforts as a whole should be acknowledged from time to time. This will instill pride and motivation to maintain the standard set. 

9. Use A/B testing to optimize motivation strategies 

Not all motivation strategies will work for every sales team. Conducting A/B testing—where you compare the effectiveness of different incentives, compensation structures, or training methods—can provide valuable insights into what works best for your organization. This data-driven approach ensures you continuously refine your sales motivation tactics for maximum impact. 

10. Offer skill-based compensation incentives 

Beyond rewarding sales numbers, consider compensating team members for developing valuable skills. For instance, offer bonuses or promotions to those who complete advanced sales training programs, obtain industry certifications, or demonstrate leadership potential. This not only boosts motivation but also enhances overall team expertise. 

11. Set dynamic, realistic quotas 

Setting quotas too high can discourage your team, while quotas that are too low won’t push them to excel. Dynamic quotas—adjusted based on market trends, seasonality, and past performance—ensure that sales goals remain challenging yet attainable. This helps keep morale high and prevents burnout. 

12. Using gamification to boost the competitive spirit 

Gamification, no doubt, is one of the proven creative ways to motivate sales team. Gamification is a way to get better performance or increased engagement with your users by adding interactive elements designed to make the learning process or experience more engaging, thereby increasing user adoption or simply encouraging a behavior change. It enables recognizing and rewarding positive behaviors incrementally and unconsciously to build a mindset for winning. 

Using gamified leaderboards to monitor sales reps' progress and developing strategies to assist them in resolving pressing problems can prove to be an excellent way for sales teams to identify where they went wrong and how they can stop this from happening in the future. 

Is your team working from different locations? Looking for ways on how to motivate sales team while working remotely? Worry not. Read our next blog to identify tips and tricks to motivate your remote sales teams and improve their productivity. 

How can Compass help with motivating the sales reps? 

If you’re looking for how to motivate a sales team effectively, Compass is a game-changer. It’s an all-in-one sales gamification software designed to boost motivation, enhance sales productivity, and keep your team engaged with real-time competitions, leaderboards, and AI-driven insights. 

1. Gamify sales to boost engagement 

Sales can be repetitive and mentally exhausting, but Compass transforms the process into an exciting and competitive experience.  

By introducing race-themed competitions, leaderboards, and rewards, your team will feel motivated to achieve sales targets while enjoying their work. 

2. Run contests tied to key performance indicators (KPIs) 

Motivating sales teams isn’t just about competition—it’s about rewarding the right behaviors. With Compass, you can create contests around specific KPIs that drive revenue, ensuring that reps stay focused on activities that increase their earnings and contribute to company growth. 

3. Increase visibility and accountability 

Compass provides real-time quota attainment dashboards and public leaderboards, ensuring transparency and accountability across the team. Reps can track their progress, compare their performance, and stay motivated to close more deals. 

4. AI-powered nudges and earnings forecasting 

Compass leverages AI to send personalized nudges, helping sales reps stay on track with their goals. Plus, the built-in earnings estimator allows reps to visualize potential commissions on upcoming deals, reinforcing motivation to achieve sales targets. 

5. Motivate reps with transparency in commission plans 

A lack of clarity in commission structures can demotivate sales teams. Compass solves this by offering an in-app plan repository, allowing reps to easily understand their commission breakdown, incentives, and earning potential in real time. 

6. Create a culture of teamwork with communities 

Beyond individual performance, Compass helps build a strong sales culture by enabling team-based challenges and communities. This feature fosters collaboration, allowing reps to support each other in achieving collective sales goals. 

7. Broadcast sales contests live on TV screens 

Sales competitions become even more exciting when broadcasted in real-time across office TV screens. This feature fuels motivation, encourages healthy competition, and keeps teams actively engaged throughout the sales cycle. 

Conclusion 

The sales team is the backbone of any organization's success. But, like a spine, even when the team is sitting comfortably in their cubicle, they do not realize they are holding up the entire body of the company. 

Ensuring your sales team remains motivated should be a significant part of your overall sales strategy. There are tons of ways to motivate your sales team; these are just a few to get you started. Many of them, such as providing opportunities for advancement, enhancing company culture, and communicating clear goals and values, can take time to achieve. Others, such as incentives and commission plans, should be considered with your team's performance benchmarks. 

The trick with all motivation strategies is to avoid everyone trying to be motivated similarly. Motivation is more effective when it comes from within. The result is a feeling of success that will spread throughout your whole team and make your sales reps eager to work even harder the next time. 

The success of your sales team is more probable if there is the proper motivation for each member. The performance of sales teams is a critical business driver since they are the revenue generators of the organizational value chain. The above-given tips will help establish a solid foundation for building and maintaining the morale of team members. 

Maximize your sales team's motivation. Turbo-charge your sales team productivity with Compass, a holistic sales gamification software. Want to know more? Don't wait. Book a free demo now! 

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