17 Oct 5 proven ways to motivate sales teams that are constantly on the move

Are your salespeople spending more and more working hours on the road and out of sight?

 

With the rapid rise of smart devices and constant connectivity, we are all a lot less tethered to our desks than we used to be. And some managers would be lucky to find themselves in the same room as many of their staff – even just once a week.

 

So how do you, as a manager, keep staff motivated and engaged in this age of constant mobility? And how do you manage the fine line between empowering your staff, micromanaging performance and regular checks and balances?

 

Over the years at VIPS, we have helped many of our clients forge stronger relationships with their mobile workforces – with minimal investment and effort. Read on to learn our top 5 strategies to keep mobile sales teams more engaged, motivated and fulfilled.

 

1. Connect with your team more often

 

It’s easy for teams that are constantly on the road to feel isolated, resulting in lower job satisfaction and motivation.

 

As much as you’d like to touch base with them regularly in person or on the phone, this is impossible for managers who are responsible for large teams – often with hundreds of staff. And a standard ‘Hi team…’ email is a highly impersonal approach that doesn’t do much more than clutter up inboxes.

 

But that doesn’t mean ‘one-to-many’ messages have to be static and boring. Why not send short video messages instead? It’s far more personal and dynamic – and much more likely to be noticed. With an iPhone or iPad in your hand most hours of the day, there really is no barrier to creating and sending regular, engaging videos to your team.

 

It’s the perfect way to acknowledge individual or group achievements and to inspire performance.

 

2. Give feedback. Regularly.

 

It’s no secret that regular performance tracking is a great way to keep staff focused and motivated.

 

But are you giving your team the constant feedback they need to stay on track? And more importantly, do you have the information you need to accurately measure individual and team performance in the first place?

 

If you don’t know how well they are doing – and you don’t communicate it – you can’t expect them to improve and advance.

 

That’s why you need the technology to track productivity and performance (at the granular level) effortlessly. Greater personal insight inspires greater accountability, which in turn inspires higher levels of motivation and success.

 

3. Cut down their paperwork

 

How many hours a week is your sales team spending on manual and administrative tasks?

 

If your people are filling out paper timesheets, handwriting sales orders at night or performing manual stock checks, chances are they’re feeling tired and unmotivated. And chances are they have less energy to invest in what really matters: making sales and servicing customers.

 

The more day-to-day business operations you can automate, the more your staff will thank you.

 

And the good news is, automation doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, when it comes to enterprise apps, the return on investment speaks for itself.

 

4. Become smarter about training and development

 

How often are you giving your team the opportunity to learn new skills?

 

Regular training and career progression activities go a long way to helping your staff feel more fulfilled, engaged and challenged at work.

 

But why limit your team to structured, in-person training sessions? With today’s technology, remote learning is a breeze. You can now use online tools to reinforce knowledge gained during training sessions. And you can make important training documents available to your staff digitally (when ‘on-the-go’) – giving them the confidence they need to do their best.

 

Online quizzes and modules may also help you stay on top of each team members’ development to improve staff satisfaction and retention almost instantly.

 

5. Reward more creatively

 

Cash, holidays, movie tickets. With so much focus on deciding what to give, many managers don’t give enough thought to what they’re giving for.

 

The most obvious people to reward are those that make the most sales. But this can get old very quickly – with many employees not bothering to compete if they know others are more likely to win the race time and again.

 

So why not start getting a little more creative with your rewards? Have you thought about rewarding team members who:

 

• Visited the most number of customers in a given month?
• Achieved the biggest individual improvement in sales numbers in a given month?
• Achieved the highest value single transaction in a given month?
• Completed their online training modules first?

 

To be able to offer these kinds of rewards, you need to understand the daily ins and outs experienced by your team on the ground – even though you’re not there to see it. And that means you need to remove the barriers to performance visibility and open communication.

 

And once again, that means technology. With the right tools at your fingertips, becoming creative with rewards becomes effortless.

 

To learn how we can help you motivate your team, remove common pain points – and empower you with greater insight and visibility, talk to VIPS today.