How Active is Your Sales Team?

You know a sure sign of slow sales? Little activity by your sales team. If you want more sales, you need to get your sales team more active.

Of course, that is much easier said than done. Sure, we all know that setting more appointments and making more cold calls increases sales but sometimes you need to think of new and different ways to get things moving.

What follows is a list of new and creative ways to get your sales team moving:

Create a leader board. This leader board tracks each sales rep’s performance and can be posted in a daily email or on a dry erase board. The point of a leader board is to act as an incentive for sales reps to push a litter harder. After all, no one likes to be in last place.
Have a team goal. Individual goals are great but team goals can really push people. Nobody wants to be the reason their team didn’t achieve their goal for the month.
Create tag teams. Pairing reps together is a great way for teammates to hold each other accountable. Plus, teammates are often very creative about motivating one another.
Figure out what motivates your reps. It would be nice if every sales rep was motivated by the same thing but that isn’t the case. Take the time to figure out what makes each sales rep tick and offer incentives that capitalizes on that information. Money, time off and titles are all examples.
Recognize hard work. While closed sales are always the end goal, sometimes – for whatever reason – sales just won’t close. Make sure you reward reps who are putting the time in. Eventually the hard work will pay off but you don’t want discouragement to set in before that happens.
Provide coaching. Some people are natural salespeople. Make sure these people take the time to share some of their secrets with new sales reps. Coaching does wonders for the people being coached but it also reminds those doing the coaching why they got into sales in the first place.
Hold meetings. While meetings often seem like a huge waste of time, short sales meetings can help reps step up their game since no one wants to report that they haven’t closed any sales or reached their appointment setting goals.

The more activity going on in your sales department, the more likely it is that sales are being made. And sometimes you have to think of new and different ways to spur that activity on