How To Get The Most Out Of Your Sales Team: Get Creative (VIDEO)

CASH IS KING… or at least that's what we've always been told.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to talk about how you can get more out of your sales team by motivating them. I'm going to focus on ways to motivate your sales team to get the most out of them.

We've always thought that cash is the way to do that. You do a sales contest, you give out money, people are happy, and BAM! You're doing great work. That's still the case, and it might be for your sales team.

But if you've found that cash isn't the motivator that you've always thought it would be, it's time to think outside the box and get creative. There's two main ways you can get the most out of your sales team by getting creative.

Two Ways to Get The Most Out of Your Sales Team and Help Improve Sales Performance

1. Motivate the Individual

The first takes more intensity and activity on your part. That would be to find out how each individual person on your team is motivated. You're going to have to ask them some question. Here are some ideas you could toss out.

Take them out to dinner with their spouses. You get to go out, meet their husbands and wives, talk about them and learn about them. This is also an opportunity to brag about them in front of their spouses about how good they're doing. Everybody loves that.
Invite them over to your home for dinner. Hey, when you get invited to the boss' house, that's a big deal. People appreciate that. Think about that!
Give them a day off. "You're doing so great at work, and you can have the day off. Yup! Friday's off. Do whatever you want to spend with the family, go golfing, go boating, whatever!"

These three little ideas are actually really big motivators for individuals on your team.

2. Motivate the Group

The next thing is to motivate your group, your team as a whole. Maybe you have a sales contest, and if you hit a certain number, a certain activity, or a certain amount of new target accounts sold, reward your entire team.

Skip Day. My favorite is a skip day. Remember Senior Skip Day in high school? Well, how about a 'Sales Skip Day?' Take everybody out, grab lunch, maybe catch a movie. It's just a fun day to reward the team for working hard.
Game Outing. Another way? Do a game outing. Go to paintball, maybe go bowling, or maybe even ride the go-karts and everyone can race. Game outings are fun, and people love that. I highly recommend this.
Throw a BBQ for the team at your home. This is a bit more of an investment for you, but throw a BBQ at your house. Invite everyone - your team, their spouses, kids, everyone. Make it a family day. This will build a relationship with your team and their families. They will get to know who they work with, and people will love it.

As you're looking for ways to get the most out of your sales team, think about ways that you can reward them in interesting, unique and personal ways. If you do that, I promise you, you're going to get better results and be one step closer to improving your sales performance.

Check out the rest of the posts in this series - linked below!

The Center for Sales Strategy Blog