We have just finished the first half of the year and we already have new goals for the rest of the year. But do we really know how to motivate commercial teams?
Three things that you should know to motivate commercial teams
Everybody who works in sales can confirm that it is a difficult and frustrating job. This role is essential for companies, but we find many times that commercial teams are not motivated enough. I am sure that you already have new goals for the rest of the year. And you will attend meetings and conferences where goals will be explained. But has anyone thought if sales teams are motivated enough to reach these goals? And what about the motivation plans to encourage commercial teams? Commercial teams’ commitment with the project is one of the most difficult aspects to keep and encourage.
We recommend you to read “Fight the lack of employee motivation with gamification.”
This is why commercial management has to design a strategy to motivate teams. In order to be effective, this motivation strategy has to be part of the company’s global strategy. Which are the three key aspects that any commercial team motivation strategy must include?
1) Explain properly the goals.
2) Provide appropriate means to achieve them.
3) Give feedback about job performance.
1) Explain properly the goals.
a) Despite the numerous meetings and the endless e-mails, many commercial teams do not clearly know what their priorities are. This usually happens because the people in charge do not know the priorities either, or because the information was not delivered correctly. It is very important to establish these priorities individually and in writing; this will avoid misunderstandings regarding the goals to be achieved.
b) Establishing estimated deadlines is also essential to evaluate goal achievement on time.
c) It should be possible to revise the goals according to their development. This is the reason why it is important to talk with the team members and ask them because they deal with customers every day. Listening, understanding, and adapting goals are also parts of the team motivation process.
d) In order to achieve the goals, these have to be divided into microobjectives. Once the main goal is clearly established, we must divide it into smaller parts that can be achieved much earlier, so commercial teams keep their motivation high. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
e) Goals must be SMART:
1) Specific: “I want to increase our sales by 20%.”
2) Measurable: “we will compare the total sales of this year with the sales of the previous year.”
3) Attainable: “we will start some marketing campaigns, the trend is positive, so we will achieve our goal.”
4) Relevant: “the sales increase is important to the company.”
5) Timely: “this has to be achieved in a year.”
f) Last but not least, in order to generate employee motivation, goals have to make sense and they have to be coordinated with the rest of the company. There is nothing less motivating in a job than senseless tasks.
Playmotiv’s app is a great tool to remember what the goal is. Through our app, team members know what they have to do and achieve, so discouragement caused by the feeling of not knowing where to go is completely supressed.
2) Provide appropriate means to achieve the goals.
a) It seems obvious that winning a marathon requires wearing appropriate shoes, right? This does not seem so obvious to some companies which do not provide the necessary means to their employees to perform their jobs. For example, digital tools make information management much easier and they increase productivity. CRM software allows us to control all the contact points with potential and current clients, so its use is essential. It is also indispensable to establish protocols and procedures to use them appropriately. An empty CRM will have the contrary effect, it will only generate frustration. Using apps can also contribute to achieve goals.
The notion of “salestech” has started to seem familiar a long time ago to refer to all the technological tools that improve sales-related procedures. If you want to read more about this, please check “Salestech digital revolution.”
b) Employee training is also included between these means to be provided to commercial teams, because knowledge is their most important tool to achieve their goals. Appropriate training will definitely improve teams’ motivation. A good training will allow them to reach any established goal.
Our app makes commercial teams’ work easier because it is a tool with plenty of information designed to motivate commercial teams and appropriately focus their efforts. Besides, it is possible to add training content in the app, so players will learn while they are playing.
3) Give feedback about job performance.
a) In order to guarantee employee motivation, it is essential that they receive constant feedback about their performance. For example, if the feedback is negative, they can change their working procedures.
There are many ways of giving feedback about performance. Individual or team rankings are very illustrative in the game context to know if the work is being performed according to commercial goals or not. In the same context and using digital tools such as smartphone apps, we can also send personalised messages to each one of the game participants thanks to variables. For example, if they have reached the goal or not. We can congratulate, encourage, or give advices in order to motivate each of them to reach their commercial goals. All this can be done quickly and at once.
b) Positive feedback can result in rewards, which increase extrinsic motivation and serve as an incentive to keep working properly. The best way to increase employee motivation is combining short-term incentives with long-term oriented acknowledgement and feedback.
Participants can check their performance in the app, and they can know if they are achieving the goals. This is how we keep teams’ motivation. Besides, players can compare their performance with other players.
Playmotiv’s solution to motivate commercial teams
We motivate commercial teams and they achieve their goals if we clearly inform about them, provide them the necessary means, and if we give constant feedback. Playmotiv offers digital tools which are capable of combining these three key aspects through gamification.
We improve our clients’ results and their sales teams in a simple way. The virtual adventures created by Playmotiv are followed through an app and their aim is to clearly establish goals, which can be checked by the participants on their smartphones. Besides, our apps offers means and knowledge to the employees. They can include very useful data to the sellers, like the sales points location and additional information. They can also include additional training in the game. Players receive constant feedback about their performance thanks to the competition ranking, so they know how they are doing at work. Besides, they receive rewards if they reach the established goals in the game. This way, we have managed to increase the sales of our clients’ commercial teams by 16% on average.
If you want to know how we did it, just ask us!
If you are interested in boosting your commercial team results, please check what we did to help Mars.
