Sales teams are the heart and soul of any business. Without hardworking salespeople, businesses can’t bring in new customers or generate revenue. So, they are critical to the success of any company. However, even the best sales teams fall into slumps sometimes, and it’s up to their managers to guide them out.

Unfortunately, though, sales managers all too often focus on the wrong things. If you’re wondering how to motivate your sales team when sales are down, here are five tried and tested methods you need to know about. But first, you’ll need to know the telltale signs of a struggling sales team.

Is My Sales Team in a Slump?

There’s no point asking how to motivate a sales team if you don’t know when they need to be motivated. Thankfully, there are several key things you can look out for, the first and most obvious being a sudden shift in performance. If your previously successful salespeople start missing key deadlines and targets, something needs to be done.

There are other, less tangible signs you should look out for, too. A big one is the group dynamic. You see, while a certain amount of stress is often part and parcel of a job in sales, too much focus on the negative can bring the whole team down. So, if your team stops having fun, chances are performance will eventually be affected.

You should also keep an eye out for an increase in procrastination and a fall in attendance. If your salespeople are putting off their work, there’s bound to be a drop in productivity. Inevitably, this will impact customer relationships and the company’s bottom line.

Stepping In as a Sales Manager

At the end of the day, it’s up to sales managers to motivate their employees, and that can be a very powerful thing in the workplace. Without motivation, people often struggle to work together and lose their drive to consistently perform at their best. By stepping in as a sales manager, you can prevent slow months from upsetting the team’s long-term progress.

What Motivates a Good Salesperson?

There’s no one thing that you can rely on to motivate salespeople. Some seek confidence in their own achievements while others rely on teamwork. So, to stimulate a team and help them work at their best once again, it’s advised that you rely on a combination of strategies.

Still, there is one thing that you can always count on to give your sales team the boost it needs: metrics. Unless you all have eyes on what’s working, it’s impossible to know what deserves celebrating and what has to change. It’s also far harder to keep a team on track without comprehensive facts and figures at your fingertips. More on this in a little while.

How Do You Motivate a Struggling Sales Team?

With all that in mind, it’s time to start thinking about what you can do to motivate your sales team. The following tips should work with any group of salespeople, regardless of their individual personalities and the overall workplace culture. So, put them into practice to stop a slump from turning into something calamitous.

1. Celebrate Success Stories

Your team deserves to feel good about the things that go well. Sales certainly isn’t a job that just anyone can do. So, it’s important that the salespeople you have on staff feel valued for their hard work. For one thing, this will make them feel as though what they do is worthwhile. For another, it fosters trust and appreciation between managers and employees.

You don’t have to go overboard when celebrating achievements, either. A simple thank you really can go a long way. Public recognition for bigger wins is also likely to make employees want to work hard. Either way, showing appreciation in the workplace is well established as a way of keeping your best employees happy.

2. Create a Collaborative Work Culture

Collaboration is key, particularly in a field that’s dominated by benchmarks and quotas. You see, in a sales environment, teams that don’t collaborate are likely to compete. While this might sound like a good thing, those that struggle in a competitive environment are likely to lose motivation fast.

So, aim to get everyone on the same page. Build the workday around common goals and encourage things like knowledge sharing and cooperation. Chances are that, if you do, they’ll be far better prepared to work harder than your company’s competitors.

3.Engage Individual Employees

Remember that your sales team is made up of individuals, all of whom work hard to hit targets. As such, you need to engage with everyone on a personal level. Find out, for example, what their preferred tasks are or which accounts they enjoy working with. Talking to individuals on a struggling sales team could also give you an insight into what they think is going wrong.

Engagement is of the utmost importance because engaged employees are much more productive. Just how engaged they are, though, relies mostly on sales managers.

4. Choose the Right Customers

It’s not just about the team. Improving morale amongst salespeople is also about finding the right customers. If your employees work with people they’re unlikely to close a deal with, their work is going to feel that bit less purposeful.

So, identify and define your company’s “primary customer” and brief your workers on exactly who they are. It helps if the values of this customer align with the overall values of the company. Finding customers that your sales team will like can also be highly motivating. Then, once everyone understands who those customers are, keep an eye on the stats to ensure the match is just right.

5. Drive Sales With a Dashboard

A sales dashboard will underpin every other motivational strategy. With comprehensive performance metrics, overarching team goals, and delegated tasks all together in one place, it’s far easier to keep your team on the same page. This will bring positive implications both for individual performance and collaboration.

Communication between you and your team members will be made much easier, too. For starters, it’s much more straightforward to engage individuals and find out what works for them with performance stats at your fingertips. And, as a direct result of easier performance tracking, you’ll always know when to celebrate wins, whether they’re big or small.

How to Motivate Sales Team to Perform

If you’re a sales manager wondering how to motivate a sales team, rest assured that there’s plenty you can do. From one-on-one encouragement and public appreciation to encouraging collaboration and choosing the right customers, several methods are known to improve morale amongst salespeople. Put each into practice and use a comprehensive, results-driven dashboard to make motivating sales employees all the more effective.