Creating the right motivation for your sales team can be the driving force you need to improve sales performance and attain your revenue goals. However, new research suggests that managers are falling short when it comes to engaging and motivating their teams. The Gallup Organization discovered that only 30% of the American workforce is actively engaged in their positions.
That means 70 million Americans are working for managers who either make them miserable, or fail to effectively motivate them.
Harvard Business Review Bloggers Frank Cespedes and Michael Wong suggest that given these results, senior sales leaders need to do more to motivate their teams. In this recent post, they provide critical steps for “reinvigorating” a sales team.
Cespedes and Wong write that companies who rely on a sales force need to “redesign processes with sales tasks, not the technology, in mind.” Force Management calls this idea, making tools “sales consumable.” As “Big Data” continues to be a driving force in marketing and strategy, companies need to recognize that if sellers can’t effectively articulate the value of their solution to a customer in a three-foot conversation – no amount of numbers is going to help them close the deal.
The focus for every sales training should be to provide sellers with consumable tools that reps use immediately with current and prospective accounts. What good is a training session if you can’t walk out of it with something you can actually use day-in and day-out?
Developing tools, like a Value Messaging Framework®, will help your sellers uncover customer needs, differentiate their solutions and position value throughout the sales process. The resulting messaging alignment, will improve sales performance and help drive consistency across your organization:
- Marketing will have the understanding it needs to develop customer-facing collateral that’s consistent with what the sales force is articulating.
- Product development will be focused on the value they’re engineering for their customers.
- Services organizations will have the knowledge they need to effectively manage ongoing customer relationships.
No matter the latest features or functions of your products, a consistent messaging framework keeps your sellers focused on the value your solutions provide for your customers. It’s a customized tool consumable for your sales team and catered to your buying audience.
A consistent message can drive impressive results. Senior leaders who make the investment in creating these sales tools will find their sellers increasingly motivated and reinvigorated to engage their prospects. It can mean the difference between a sales team that’s barely making its number every quarter, and one that consistently achieves:
- Higher competitive win rates
- Higher average deal size
- Greater deal margins
