How to Get Sales Managers Coaching and Motivating the Right Salespeople

Motivating salespeople is something most sales managers worry about.  They spend a lot of time setting quotas, creating incentives, and coaching their teams. However, there may be another way.

According to Harvard Business Review, most salesforces have three distinct segments:  Stars, Core Performers, and the Laggards.  They likely fit on a normal bell-shaped curve with the Stars at 20%, Core Performers 60%, and Laggards 20%.

Where do you think most sales managers spend most of their time? Which group do most incentive plans ignore the most?

Ironically many sales managers and their incentive plan often ignore core performers.  One key reason is that sales managers usually don’t identify with them. At many companies, sales managers are former Stars promoted to managers. Managers also spend a lot of time trying to fix the laggards, that have the most performance problems.

Core performers are often the largest segment of the sales force, and companies can’t ignore them if they are going to make their numbers or grow their sales.

Most companies rely on incentive plans, prizes, and social pressure to motivate sales teams including the core performers.  HBR suggests tweaking incentive plans for core performers.

However, within the core performer group, what motivates one salesperson may not motivate another. Everyone is unique.  Sales managers should understand what motivates them collectively to see if there are similarities. Best case try to assess motivation individually. One way to get this information is to either dialogue with the reps or use an assessment tool to gather the needed information.  With insight, the sales manager can then coach them individually based upon their strong motivational drivers.

An Assessment Tool for Coaching and Motivating Salespeople

There is a validated online assessment developed by Dr. Eduard Spranger and Gordon Allport.

·    Download a one-page overview of the Motivator Assessment. It will outline the Seven Universal Motivators. Also, download the DiSC Assessment tool that measures behavioral strengths and weaknesses. The Motivator Assessment is often coupled with DiSC or Social Style, a tool to identify our behavioral strengths and weaknesses. The Motivator Assessment may help you increase your effectiveness in coaching and motivating salespeople.

·    Call Rob at (𝟱𝟭𝟯)𝟳𝟳𝟮-𝟱𝟭𝟭𝟱 to discuss a beta test for your sales managers in a virtual coaching program in December. I’m also setting up now some half-day sessions for sales meetings in January.  We plan to validate the results of this pilot program and measure sales improvement. We are expecting a nice ROI from Motivating Salespeople.