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By Mike Purcell, Florida Lottery
My first outside sales job was commission based sales, plus bonuses. The company had a typical straightforward approach to employee motivation, if you want to get paid, you have to sell. If you want to keep your job, you need to sell more than the last person who had your job. If you want to earn good bonus money, you need to sell a lot of what we tell you to sell. This is where I learned how to sell and got pretty good at it, but I didn’t like the working environment, and neither did many of the other employees. Therefore, turnover was high despite the money being good.
While an employee incentive program can be a great part of any organizational plan to encourage a desired behavior and to help motivate the team, countless research has shown that money is not a major factor in employee motivation. In fact, it often is not among the top five reasons for motivation and job happiness. With that being the case, how do you motivate a sales team whether or not you have an incentive package? In my experience, long term results for your team are more likely to happen when the sales representatives are given recognition, training, and challenges.
Let’s start with Recognition – Always look for something your team has done right, even if it is a small something or something done right in the middle of many things done wrong. Whenever we are conducting evaluations in the field, we want to make sure we find out what is right and what is not right. Correcting something done wrong will address an immediate problem while praising something done right will have longer positive effects for the individual and the organization. Praise and recognition does not have to be lavish, but it does need to be honest and meaningful. Regardless of whether the recognition is informal or formal, it makes people feel good and is an affirmative motivator.
Informal recognition doesn’t take much effort, but it is a valuable method because its simplicity allows you to recognize a lot of different people doing something right. Call a sales rep just to tell them a retailer said something nice about them; send an email to the rep because the Point of Sale they just placed at a store dominated all other vendor POS; write a personal note to a rep who helped with a special project. These spontaneous actions all take very little effort on your part, but are very much appreciated by the recipient.
Formal recognition takes more time and planning, but will impact a wider group of people. This is where peer pressure helps influence people’s actions. Since 2005, sales reps at the Florida Lottery who finish in the top 10 for annual sales goal attainment (out of 113 reps) receive new business cards with a “TOP 10 Sales Representative” designation printed at the top of the card. There is a lot of pride associated with being able to hand someone that card. In addition, we also make sure that top performers are recognized each quarter with a personalized letter and have their names listed on a banner on our intranet page. The top performing district is presented with the “Secretary’s Cup” each year. The district name is engraved on the cup and the manager will display it in their office for the entire year. Again, there is a great sense of pride within the winners’ office in being able to display the trophy Cup all year. Pictures of the Cup will show up in presentations by the winning district, and will often be displayed during video conferences. The winners are definitely not shy about boasting!
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Sales Representatives (SRs) are competitive and, like most people, are motivated by peer pressure. They like coming in first and hate coming in last. They work hard for the pleasure received by being recognized as the best, and will work harder to avoid the pain of being the worst. So, without recognition being given for doing well, you remove a major factor that influences what they do each day.
Training is a critical component to good sales representatives. One of my “standard” interview questions I used to ask was, “What have you done to prepare for getting this job?” I remember asking an internal candidate that question and they just gave me a blank stare for three or four seconds, and then tried to answer the best they could. Then I realized I would have had a similar blank stare if they had asked me “What have you done to prepare me for this job?” If you want people to succeed, you not only need to give them the tools to do the job, but you need to show them how to use those tools. Whether the goal is training for a specific task, for overall job performance improvement, or career advancement, everyone wants to ultimately get better at what they do.
[fusion_testimonials design=”classic” backgroundcolor=”” textcolor=”” random=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_testimonial name=”Zig Ziglar, American author, salesman, and motivational speaker” avatar=”none” image=”” image_border_radius=”” company=”” link=”” target=”_self”]
“You can have everything you want in life if you just help enough people get what they want in life.”
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For many reasons it is important to be challenged on the job, but that is different than not being prepared and able to do the job. The first level of training is for individual tasks. If you want a sales rep to make cold calls, make sure you show them how, explain your expectations, do lots of role playing in a group, and then send them out and let them try it on the streets. Even a failure is not so terrible when you have been well prepared. The blow is lessened with observation and training follow-up.
After the SRs have mastered the individual tasks, have them train others. It is rare to have an individual SR who is great at everything. However, a district office will have individuals who excel in certain aspects of the job. Let them share their skills with the other members of the team. A great deal of pride comes from being recognized as a subject matter expert. It also gives you the opportunity to ask them to hone their skills with additional practice or research before they train others. The exercise of asking everyone to share in the training will not only motivate the team, but will make a much stronger cohesive team.
Then, train them for their next job, whether it is at your agency or somewhere else. Many of our best, most motivated performers at the Florida Lottery have advanced from within the agency. Your recognition of their potential will result in a higher level of performance. Set goals for advancement and follow-up to monitor their progress. Don’t let it be a guessing game to them. Let them know why you are focusing on them and discuss long range plans.
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Next are the challenges. – Most people would say it makes no sense, but give your team more work, and harder work, and they will be happier and more motivated. Without being challenged and pushed your sales force will never reach their full potential. A few years ago our current Secretary who was responsible for Sales and Marketing at the time challenged the Sales Team to increase the number of scratch ticket facings in existing stores by 40%, during the fiscal year. The challenge was based on our consistent, double digit annual scratch growth, often outpacing other product categories in those stores. While the Sales Team initially resisted the challenge, managers broke it down into smaller, attainable goals. First, only stores (independent and corporate) with strong scratch sales, store traffic, and growth potential were identified. Second, reps received goals each quarter that increased facings in their territory by 10%. Finally, we began training sessions with the teams that included practice selling complete with presentations containing facts and figures for the retailers to see. The result was over 70,000 new facings attained in existing retailers, in one year. If you go back and look at our sales history you can see the spike in scratch sales as a result of the Sales Team meeting this challenge.
As a manager at the time, it was really fun and exciting to watch the change in attitude of the entire sales force. They started with disbelief of the goal they were given, to acceptance of the challenge, to recognition that they could be better than they were, and, in many cases, great enthusiasm for trying to beat the goal. The more they sold, the more they pushed themselves and convinced others to do the same. I was not surprised that the top performers did well in this challenge, but I was caught off guard by the “average” sales people who really responded to it, and not only excelled, but led the way in many cases.
Always make sure to provide people with the necessary directions, tools, and training to meet the challenge. Giving challenges to the team makes the job more meaningful and develops their skills. Make those challenges competitive and you will have even greater results. Competition drives sales people, at least it should. So you have to ask these questions: Is your sales team being challenged by their job? Are they enjoying it, or are they just enduring it?
If you haven’t had the chance to read any of Daniel Pink’s books, such as “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” or “To Sell is Human” I highly recommend them. He also has a good TED Talks entitled, “The Puzzle of Motivation.” He discusses many ways that we are motivated and many ways that we are not. One of the many points he mentions is that rewards, such as an incentive, narrows our focus and often destroys creativity.
This narrow focus is usually counter to what we want our sales force to do, so we must ensure that our other methods of motivation are not forgotten just because we put a financial incentive in place. Look for ways to help the team grow better and stronger, and you will be in a much better position to reach your goals, and your team will be much more motivated to succeed. Bonuses and incentives are good additions to help your sales reps and agency succeed, but don’t let it be the only incentive.
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