Your stormtroopers are out in the field, talking to customers, to clients, to new hopeful clients, pitching and passionately pushing your product as far and wide as they can. When sales teams are away from the office and not surrounded by their colleagues, they know that it’s now them against the world. Whatever challenges they face in the real world, it’s now time for them to pull their socks up and roll with the punches. If there are unhappy customers or consumers with difficult questions about your product or service, rest assured that your sales teams with do their best to answer properly. If they have been briefed and mentally prepared for going out on a limb, a step further and knowing the ins and outs of the thing they are selling, these challenges will be hard but not insurmountable. Sales teams are often the main point of contact that your business will have with distributors too. Clients will also usually speak with them first. Customers at events, exhibitions and festivals will be speaking with your sales teams before they even know who you are. In among this maelstrom, how do you keep your team motivated?
The leader to leader relationship
Quite obviously you’re the business leader and owner. You are the end all be all of your business, but you have to make sure you are engaging with your sales team leader at ground level. Some business owners want to ring their team leader every day and see how are things going. Don’t do this. It puts pressure on the team leader to offer you some kind of new or riveting answer or update even when the circumstances don’t understandably call for it. The leader to leader relationship is so important to morale and direction, don’t be overbearing and let your chosen team leader do what they were chosen for. Give him or her encouragement, tell them they are doing a good job when they are, and give them advice when you see something going wrong.
A scheduled update
At any given time during an intense sales initiative, you could have several teams out in the world. You may have teams in different parts of the world too so reaching out to all of them no matter their location is critical. Using a ringless voicemail service, you can record a message such as an update on their progress and or your new orders, and each team can receive it all at once. Choose just the team leaders as the recipients and the message will only go out to them. This is great for when you’re having to juggle different time zones, where one team might be asleep while another is just getting ready to go out after their breakfast. It saves time and hassle to have a blanket messaging system.
Share their impact
Teams on the ground are often in bunker mode or at least they are so focused that they hardly notice the real impact of their hard work. If you are getting great feedback from customers or a large number of consumers have interacted positively with your business since the teams have been out, share this with them. They need to know that their hard work is having a great effect on and there is a definite increase in interest and or sales. Draw up some graphs or share with the teams some figures that show this. This gives the teams out in the field a sense of gratification. They know that they aren’t in a vacuum and their actions on the streets, in the board rooms, and even online really do matter. This should really be a weekly thing so their motivation stays high.
A surprise visit
Surprising your teams who are out in the field with an in-person visit can really boost their morale. When a boss genuinely takes a trip out to meet with his employees who he or she themselves sent out to accomplish a task, shows they are paying close attention to their progress they are making. If there are any problems that could not have been solved or properly understood over email or the phone, then seeing what the issues are with your own eyes will make it easier.
Sales teams that are away from the office, have packed their suitcases and are travelling around the world and or country, need to be shown the impact their hard work is having. Send a message to all your team leaders at once, encouraging them and updating them with new orders if you need to. Share the details of their impact using visuals and data being received at the office to uplift their spirits.
