If you aren't familiar with the value of learning and development opportunities and its impact on sales team morale, consider this: a recent national survey found that 87% of employees comprised of Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Millennials believe professional development and career growth opportunities to be an essential factor in whether or not they stay in their current job.
Engagement is a critical component of team morale, something the most successful businesses have figured out. Companies with highly engaged teams have 21% greater profitability, resulting from improved productivity and lower costs for recruiting and training replacement employees.
Customer satisfaction is another byproduct of high morale. The salesperson who feels their company is invested in their personal growth and professional success will work harder to engage their customers and understand their pain points. They will be able to offer creative solutions that benefit the customer and your company. The result is a loyal customer base who feels they have a trusted advisor, not simply a salesperson.
Seven Ways To Boost Sales Team Morale
So, how do you raise the morale of your BevAlc sales team? Consider the following seven best practices for building a highly engaged salesforce.
1. Adopt a Formal Sales Coaching Approach
While top-performing salespeople are adept at learning new territories and creating relationships, there are still many skills that you need to impart to ensure their success. Formal coaching involves a set time dedicated to structured learning. It involves listening, asking questions, giving feedback, setting goals, and designing a plan to achieve them. It is an active, ongoing dialog with milestones to measure progress.
2. Create Individual Targets for Each Rep
Throwing out a sales quota for the entire team is not the way to inspire high morale. As the saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day. It takes time to assess each salesperson and consider their experience, aptitude, and territory. During your coaching sessions, you can start to build achievable targets to keep them on an upward trajectory.
3. Provide Constructive Feedback to Sales Reps With a Focus on Learning and Development
"Sell more" or "do better" are not examples of constructive or effective coaching feedback. They are vague and without a goal to measure how much progress has been made or whether they have achieved it. There are no actionable steps to help them build the necessary skills to improve. Constructive feedback should be specific to the salesperson and focused on learning and development so that they have a clear idea of what they need to improve and how to do so.
4. Ask To Receive Feedback Yourself
Great coaches build great teams. A culture of continuous learning and development includes every level of the organization. As a coach, you also need feedback about your communication, whether the salesperson feels heard, if your expectations are clearly defined, and if they feel their goals and milestones are achievable. The best way to inspire growth and boost morale in your team is to exhibit the behaviors you want to see in them.
5. Recognize Individual and Group Achievements
Each of your salespeople has different talents, expertise, challenges, goals, and expectations. Their progress will vary depending upon many factors. While it is critical to recognize the individual's contributions and achievements, it is also important to remind them that they are a team. No one is an island, and they don't want to be, so recognize how they contribute to business objectives or the accomplishments of their teammates as a well-functioning group.
6. Allow Sales Reps To Experiment With New Ideas
New ideas are like breathing fresh air into your team. You've been guiding them. Now it's time to let them bring some new perspective on solving problems, improving costs, increasing productivity, or boosting sales. Let the initiative, learnings, and successes of one inspire others in the team.
7. Get To Know Each Sales Rep With More Effective 1:1s Using Real Data
There is power in data, as it gives quantifiable benchmarks and tracks progress toward goals. Prior sales, average sales in a territory, business closures, and other demographics can uncover factors outside of your rep's control that impact sales success and give you a better insight into the capabilities of your salesperson. When you have all the information in front of you, your 1:1s become more effective, allowing you and your rep to collaborate on creative solutions to problems, as well as how to set realistic goals based on their situation.
Blended Learning Is the Key
A high-quality blended learning platform that offers tools and techniques for BevAlc sales success is the key to an engaged team. It should enhance a continuous learning culture for all levels of the organization with a blend of self-directed, on-demand, and virtual live classes.
