Understanding what motivates a sales team is a significant challenge faced by sales managers. Typical sales teams often span three or even four generations, each shaped by unique experiences and values. Recognizing and adapting to these generational differences is crucial for effective sales leadership, reducing turnover, and driving better sales performance.
Sales motivation refers to a salesperson's drive, energy, and enthusiasm to achieve their sales targets. It keeps sales reps going, even when faced with challenges and setbacks. When a sales team is motivated, they're more likely to go above and beyond average performance and produce outstanding results.
Sales motivation can come from various sources, including personal goals, career aspirations, financial rewards, recognition, and a sense of accomplishment. Sales managers who can tap into these internal sources of motivation are better able to achieve great sales results.
While generational differences exist, it's important to recognize that everyone is unique. The key is to strike a balance between understanding broad generational trends and catering to the specific motivators of each individual on your team.
As a high-impact sales manager, you want your salespeople to be motivated about the sales goal, to work toward that goal, and even go the extra mile to overachieve.
The hard part is identifying exactly how to motivate salespeople. There are several challenges to consider when motivating your sales team.
First, not only is everyone different, but we have different motivations. Secondly, those motivations can change very quickly, as can their intensity. You may feel charged and ready to face any challenge your job offers after a raise, bonus, or positive recognition. That intense drive may not be there all the time.
Additionally, although motivations vary between people and can change within the salesperson, one or two dominant motivating factors usually drive a salesperson. If you can key into the factors for each of your salespeople, you have a foundation for creating a sales motivation strategy.
To be a successful sales leader, you must identify dominant motivations and recognize motivation signals. But remember that no leader has ever been able to motivate everyone 100 percent of the time. Your objective is to increase each salesperson's motivation to achieve sales goals. That might mean bringing someone operating at 85% to 90%.
MOTIVE is an acronym representing six common factors motivating salespeople: Money, Opportunity, Teamwork, Independence, Visibility, and Excellence.
Money, or what money can buy, is important to most salespeople but not necessarily most important to everyone. It’s the most obvious motivator, but other motivators may be equally important.
Ways to impact and support money as a motivator include:
Many salespeople are driven by opportunity. What constitutes an opportunity varies from person to person. Still, motivational opportunities usually fall into the categories of challenges and the possibility of improving one's situation on the job or in life.
When you've recognized this motivation in members of your sales team, you should try to create an environment that offers opportunities.
Ways to create opportunities include:
Many salespeople are perceived as hard-working go-getters who prefer to work alone to go after what they want to be successful. The nature of a sales position attracts independent people who prefer working alone.
But many salespeople don’t fit neatly into that stereotypical image. They’re motivated by the social aspects of being part of a team and contributing to its success. These people may get satisfaction from group problem-solving, contributing to a co-worker's success, or even playing a significant role at a sales meeting.
Ways to cultivate teamwork include:
While some salespeople are motivated by teamwork, many prefer to be left to their own devices. This motivator should not be ignored or minimized because people belong to a team. Instead, use it to motivate your salespeople to be successful. It involves empowerment, independence, and freedom, enhancing feelings of power and control.
Ways to foster independence include:
Some salespeople are driven by recognition, approval, or a need to stand out from the crowd. Whereas opportunity comes from internal recognition of achievements, visibility involves recognition from others.
Ways to promote visibility include:
Most people want to perform well, even if they aren't doing well. The difference between the "excellence" and "opportunity" motivators is that the excellence-motivated person wants to excel at what he does and isn’t necessarily seeking higher, more challenging goals and opportunities. Excellence means the person takes great pride in achieving or surpassing personal and professional expectations.
The key to motivating this person is in a behavioral theory called the Pygmalion effect, or self-fulfilling prophecy. This theory states that your feelings about or confidence in a person's abilities will unconsciously be communicated to them via body language, actions, tone, and verbal interactions.
If you’re convinced that your salespeople are all capable of achieving their goals and you let them know it, it will reinforce their desires and motivation, and they’ll likely achieve and perhaps surpass their goals. On the other hand, if you’re doubtful that they can do it, it can lower your sales team's confidence in themselves, preventing them from performing well.
Ways to move the self-fulfilling prophecy in a positive direction include:
To effectively apply the MOTIVE model to your sales team, you must recognize how each generation’s unique motivators align with the framework. This section offers strategies to motivate salespeople from different generations, ensuring you address their key motivators and maximize performance.
Boomers value stability and recognition within structured environments. They are motivated by long-term security and the traditional markers of success, such as financial stability and career advancement.
Gen X prioritizes independence and work-life balance. They focus on efficient, skill-based performance and are driven by opportunities for personal growth and career development.
This generation seeks purpose-driven work and thrives in collaborative environments. Millennials strongly emphasize learning, growth, and recognition and are particularly motivated by opportunities to make a meaningful impact.
Highly adaptable and tech-savvy, Gen Z values innovation, digital independence, and social responsibility. They are driven by the desire to make an immediate impact and value visibility and recognition, primarily through digital platforms.
While the MOTIVE model offers a strong foundation for understanding generational trends, the best way to truly understand what drives each individual on your team is through direct observation and open conversations. Here are some effective techniques for uncovering what motivates your sales team:
These techniques will help you identify and respond to individual motivators, allowing you to speak in a language that resonates with each team member and positively influences their behavior.
Sales managers must recognize the six common factors motivating salespeople: Money, Opportunity, Teamwork, Independence, Visibility, and Excellence (MOTIVE). The MOTIVE model provides a powerful framework for understanding and addressing motivational factors across generations.
Leaders can create a more engaged, productive, and harmonious workplace by balancing generational insights with individual preferences.
Remember, effective leadership in a multi-generational sales team isn't about treating everyone the same—it's about understanding and valuing the unique perspectives and motivations each person brings to the team. By speaking the language of your team members and addressing their individual needs, you unlock the potential for greater sales success.