How You Can Improve Your Sales Team’s Motivation

Increasing employee productivity is something that's always of interest to team leaders, especially in sales, where productivity and effectiveness translate directly into customers, orders, and profit. Successful sales reps tend to be people who are naturally highly motivated and productive, but there's almost always room for improvement. If you're looking for new ways to improve the productivity of your sales team, investigating the self-determination theory may be highly beneficial.

Self-Determination Theory and Motivation

Self-determination theory is a model of motivation, which states that people are more productive when their motivation comes from within, rather than when they are pressured by external forces.

In terms of sales it might, for example, be the difference between a sales rep being pressured to perform by their supervisor, and a rep being intrinsically motivated to perform because they genuinely enjoy the job and want to succeed. The latter situation is obviously more effective, and in terms of sales performance, tapping into this kind of motivation can be a game-changer.

Applying Self-Determination Concepts to Sales Coaching

There are three psychological needs that must be met for an employee to have strong internal motivation.

• Autonomy: the employee must feel that their work and work performance is something they choose for themselves.

• Competence: the employee must feel competent and valued in their working environment.

• Relatedness: the employee must feel that they have supportive and meaningful relationships with colleagues.

Sales training can't teach or inspire internal motivation, but a supervisor or coach can support an employee's drive to develop and maintain it. For example, a sales leader can facilitate relatedness by building supportive relationships with each member of the team, and by creating an environment that encourages team members to form supportive relationships with one another.

The needs for autonomy and competence are partially met when an employee chooses, enjoys, and is suited to a career in sales. It's also something that the working environment must support, particularly in terms of feedback given by coaches and supervisors. For example, it's important for team leaders to provide reps with opportunities to make choices, and to give them all the information they need to make choices that allow them to perform to a high level of competency.

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