Sales Team Morale Boost - HELP!

Engagement and Culture
#1

Hi there Culture Professionals!

My Sales Team is struggling this month (or the last few months) morale wise. It has been a tough few months with lower sales than usual. I feel a sense of engagement in work decreasing and a frustration increasing.

I need your help with what you would do in this situation. How can we help boost morale, engagement, team unity…???

Thank you so much!

#2

Hi Krysia :blush: I will share my POV as a sales person, from having been in that situation myself and hope it helps.

Some things you can think of that might help:

1)If everyone is not doing well - that’s OK - comparisons between high achievers (rock stars usually called in sales) and low performers drive unhealthy competition and take away the individuality of people not doing so well. This might also affect their psychology and confidence which are very crucial aspects for sales (the worse you perform the more desperate you become to close a deal).

2)Acknowledge that even the best sales people can have bad quarters, although sales is a numbers game, luck is also involved. It is how you bounce back from a bad quarter and you don’t let it affect you and drug for many more quarters that matters.

3)You might want to think if there are other issues that have affected this low performance and morale like a change in their targets or their commission structure - if they feel like their targets are achievable they might not feel motivated enough to work for them. Also, changes in Management - lack of trust in leadership and the business strategy of the company can also affect if they feel motivated enough to push to go that extra mile for the organisation.

Not sure if any of these resonate with you, just my two cents on the subject! Good luck!

#3

Thank you so much, Myrto!

That is really helpful and some wonderful thoughts. I appreciate it.

Best,
Krysia

#4

Hey Krysia,

I would highly recommend the following action items(choose depending on the context that aligns with your firm, your team, prevalent culture, and team dynamics):

Assuming that no org wide changes happened in the past few months:

  • Look at the sales figures since Apr, 2019. Do a M-O-M change analysis. Segregate the top contributors per quarter and the bottom contributors per quarter. Also, register the mid performers in the team.
  • Get a similar data set from other Managers operating in the same geographies for a similar product.
  • Now get started with talking to your top performers and bottom performers. Try to listen to their perspectives on why the sales have dropped and the reason(s) thereof.
  • Now combine all these bits and identify the reasons (internal from team)/ (external due to market which would have impacted the other teams as well)
  • If it is internal, then customize the solution to the specific individuals
  • If it is external, then wait for a change at the org level (revamp sales strategy)
#5

Hi Anushu,

Thank you so much for these ideas. I am going to run some of this action plan with my Sales Team Manager.

Best,

Krysia

#6

Hey Krysta,

As a sales/sales dev person myself, I am always grateful when folks are asking how can we make build a better workplace for sales folks.

At my previous role, I was the top performer, and the lowest performer… I WAS the only SDR facing 10-30 rejections on a daily basis.

It sucked. What made it worst was that I was reporting to a nonsales manager who I couldn’t count on for career development or feedback to the work I was doing.

Despite all the things said above, I fell in love with my work and the startup I was working at because of 3 factors: mastery, autonomy, and purpose.

1: I had a strong relationship with my account executive who cared deeply about me as a person. Most SDRs want to be an AE, so working directly with someone who you want to be definitely kept me motivated.
How would you describe your SDR/AE mentorship model at your company?

2: I had a lot of autonomy. Like a lot a lot. As long as I was bringing in qualify sales meeting, I can be as creative in my outreach as I want to. I can work from wherever and whenever I wanted. This gave me a ton of flexibility to work on my personal goals from public speaking to riding my mtb at noon.
Are your sales people following a process that is too strict like following a call script word by word, or a process that is too manual?

3: I truly connected with the company’s mission to help non native english speaker (like myself) to gain the communication and soft skills to thrive at work.
How well does your salespeople connect to your company’s mission?
Is your VP of sales and CEOs have the ability to communicate their vision/north star clearly to your sales team?

Btw, I just joined Culture Amp’s sales team and I’m so grateful to work with a manager that truly care about my own career and personal development, getting the constructive feedback I need to grow as a person, and having a clear goal to strive after.

Hope this helps

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