How effective sales leaders align goals with motivation

What can sales leaders do with their teams to align goals with motivation while ensuring they don’t create a turn or negative culture?

So we often work with sales managers around what they can do around business goals around; what are the metrics and activities that need to happen inside their team outside their micro environment for each salesperson to be successful.

But what we find is a common gap. Not many businesses actually look at personal goals of an individual.

So, we work closely with sales managers to help them to get as much information as they can from their team member around what drives them personally and get them to share as much as they can, as much as they’re willing to, around, what would it mean if they did hit their target or their stretch budget and get a, a $10,000 commission at the end of the quarter?

What would that actually mean for them personally, get if the more personal they can make it the easier it is for them to be able to have a great conversation, to challenge them.

For example, if someone said, “oh, you know, with my next commission check, I want to take my wife and family to Disneyland”. The conversation can then be around how close they are to taking the family to Disneyland, it’s very different to having a KPI conversation about how “you’re 90% of budget – you’re nearly there”.

If you can make it personal and tie it back into what’s important to them, you have a much greater chance of getting that person to push outside the com comfort zone or grab the extra mile.

So it’s important for the sales manager to make it personal; as it’s not always about compensation for some sellers?

We have business owners that will deny that personal goal setting is important because they believe everyone’s motivated by money.

That’s because some sales leaders are personally motivated by money. The only way they try to motivate their team is by money.

We’ve got 2.1 million data points that show us that 80% of sales people’s primary motivation is intrinsic. So that’s, non-financial.

So, statistically, if you are looking at how to motivate a sales team, and you’re just throwing bonuses and commissions, than you’re missing the mark; you’re not getting the most from them as individuals.