5 Ways To Get Your Sales Team Motivated
I just returned from a family vacation in Bali which I visited for the first time in my life. I was somewhat apprehensive about visiting Bali with wife and 3 young kids as I’d heard many “horror” stories of bad experiences that seem to get the attention of the media.
To my delight we had the best family holiday ever, largely due to the amazing attitudes and friendliness of the Balinese people in the resort and everywhere we travelled across Bali. The staff specifically at the resort we stayed in Nusa Dua had a helpful and attentive passion for their job which created a contagious culture which is rare to find in Australia.
And they must be motivated by more than just money, as the minimum wage in Bali is just over $180/month AUD!
It got me thinking… Why in dealerships in 2016 do I often hear that management are struggling to motivate their sales team in order to increase their performance? That people just aren’t hungry or driven to do anything more than just enough...
With new car profitability in 2016 on the decline and a hyper-competitive market, we can’t afford to have any sales team struggling for motivation, and therefore we must be proactive to manage our sales teams differently.
So here are 5 ways you can get your sales team more motivated to do more than just enough.
1. Hire Motivated People
The reality is you can’t motivate people who aren’t self-motivated, instead you must hire self-motivated people, and then continue to inspire them to get the best out of themselves.
Whilst good help is hard to find, this doesn’t give us an excuse for hiring the best of a bad bunch only to complain that they aren’t motivated once they finish their probation. The hiring process is so important to find out what motivates and inspires the person you are looking to hire.
2. Expect Initiative
As a key performance indicator, I always recommend to the dealers to measure more than just the number of sales, gross profit, and CSI. If you are going to expect initiative, then you have to expect your sales team to be regularly coming to you in management with new ideas, to be regularly prospecting, and to be creating business on their own, not just waiting for the door to swing or the phone to ring.
I would also recommend paying an additional bonus for sales that are won from prospecting, repeat and referral or other initiatives.
3. Don’t Allow Negativity
I’m a big believer that if you are going to create a culture of motivation in your sales team, you must have a zero tolerance for the opposite. Negativity is the cancer that will kill motivation in your dealership.
A good friend of mine runs a business in the United States. He has a no negativity policy in his company where if someone is caught more than once being negative without giving a solution to the problem, they no longer have a position at his company. Tough but absolutely necessary!
4. Stop Running “Beat Up” Meetings
Your morning meetings are the place your team will either find their motivation or have it instantly smashed. Many dealerships have a morning sales meeting to run through yesterday’s results and smash the team if it didn’t perform. That’s crazy!
Instead of going through the numbers, you must run a “Jump Start Meeting” that motivates and trains the team for the day ahead. In this meeting you will role play, discuss and handle customer objections, product news and quiz, share good performance stories and offer assistance to your team with leads.
5. Understand Your Staff’s Motivation
It’s hard to get your sales team motivated when you don’t know what motivates each individual. Could you tell me what the greatest motivator is to each member of your sales team? Is it spending time with their family, buying a new house, going on a holiday, having a weekend off, being a the number 1 performer, being offered a promotion??? Leadership expert John Maxwell says, “Leadership is influence”, and if you want to have influence with your team, you must know what makes them tick in order to remind them of their motivations when times get tough...
I hope you can implement these 5 techniques and get ready for a more motivated and high performing sales team.
I look forward to your feedback on this article by emailing me at dave@davebenson247.com
Great selling!
Dave Benson
0427 384 774
dave@davebenson247.com
http://davebenson247.com
To my delight we had the best family holiday ever, largely due to the amazing attitudes and friendliness of the Balinese people in the resort and everywhere we travelled across Bali. The staff specifically at the resort we stayed in Nusa Dua had a helpful and attentive passion for their job which created a contagious culture which is rare to find in Australia.
And they must be motivated by more than just money, as the minimum wage in Bali is just over $180/month AUD!
It got me thinking… Why in dealerships in 2016 do I often hear that management are struggling to motivate their sales team in order to increase their performance? That people just aren’t hungry or driven to do anything more than just enough...
With new car profitability in 2016 on the decline and a hyper-competitive market, we can’t afford to have any sales team struggling for motivation, and therefore we must be proactive to manage our sales teams differently.
So here are 5 ways you can get your sales team more motivated to do more than just enough.
1. Hire Motivated People
The reality is you can’t motivate people who aren’t self-motivated, instead you must hire self-motivated people, and then continue to inspire them to get the best out of themselves.
Whilst good help is hard to find, this doesn’t give us an excuse for hiring the best of a bad bunch only to complain that they aren’t motivated once they finish their probation. The hiring process is so important to find out what motivates and inspires the person you are looking to hire.
2. Expect Initiative
As a key performance indicator, I always recommend to the dealers to measure more than just the number of sales, gross profit, and CSI. If you are going to expect initiative, then you have to expect your sales team to be regularly coming to you in management with new ideas, to be regularly prospecting, and to be creating business on their own, not just waiting for the door to swing or the phone to ring.
I would also recommend paying an additional bonus for sales that are won from prospecting, repeat and referral or other initiatives.
3. Don’t Allow Negativity
I’m a big believer that if you are going to create a culture of motivation in your sales team, you must have a zero tolerance for the opposite. Negativity is the cancer that will kill motivation in your dealership.
A good friend of mine runs a business in the United States. He has a no negativity policy in his company where if someone is caught more than once being negative without giving a solution to the problem, they no longer have a position at his company. Tough but absolutely necessary!
4. Stop Running “Beat Up” Meetings
Your morning meetings are the place your team will either find their motivation or have it instantly smashed. Many dealerships have a morning sales meeting to run through yesterday’s results and smash the team if it didn’t perform. That’s crazy!
Instead of going through the numbers, you must run a “Jump Start Meeting” that motivates and trains the team for the day ahead. In this meeting you will role play, discuss and handle customer objections, product news and quiz, share good performance stories and offer assistance to your team with leads.
5. Understand Your Staff’s Motivation
It’s hard to get your sales team motivated when you don’t know what motivates each individual. Could you tell me what the greatest motivator is to each member of your sales team? Is it spending time with their family, buying a new house, going on a holiday, having a weekend off, being a the number 1 performer, being offered a promotion??? Leadership expert John Maxwell says, “Leadership is influence”, and if you want to have influence with your team, you must know what makes them tick in order to remind them of their motivations when times get tough...
I hope you can implement these 5 techniques and get ready for a more motivated and high performing sales team.
I look forward to your feedback on this article by emailing me at dave@davebenson247.com
Great selling!
Dave Benson
0427 384 774
dave@davebenson247.com
http://davebenson247.com
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