Slumping sales performance isn't necessarily the fault of employees. Often, an improved workplace culture is what motivates salespeople to hit their targets.
When sales performance dips, blame is usually directed at those who failed to hit their quarterly goals. But is this the right response?
Modern business strategies are constantly evolving, and employee engagement and workplace culture have become a crucial part of success. Similarly, when performance isn't meeting expectations, there may be more to the issue than a faulty staff. At some point, management must take credit for the failure and address it.
"If sales performance drops, it could be time to revamp workplace culture."
Sales performance is an organisational responsibility
Gone are the days where job security is what motivates an employee. If companies truly want to bring out the best in their salespeople, they need to develop mechanisms to do so. The Harvard Business Review found that the best performing businesses in their respective industries place a high importance on three motives:
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Play: There's some truth to the phrase, "If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life." Organisations should create an environment that encourages employees to take joy in their daily efforts.
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Purpose: Everyone wants to feel as though their work is meaningful in some way. Companies can develop an internal system that rewards staff for their work in an effort to draw this out.
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Potential: Vertical mobility is of the utmost importance to nearly everyone. Peer-to-peer public recognition is one way to ensure that great work never goes unnoticed.
These three motives seem dissimilar on the surface, but HBR reported many of the most successful organisations have cultures that prioritise all three in one way or another. The issue some businesses have is they simply have little clue as to how to motivate employees by appealing to the play, purpose and potential aspects of work.
Taking a step forward
Perhaps the reason why companies have so much difficulty improving sales performance is because they don't realise that workplace culture can be a motivator. If you don't like where you work, you're less likely to take joy in what you do or feel you're doing meaningful work.
Employee rewards and recognition programs can be deployed in a way that meets all three of the motives identified by HBR as keys to success. A modern program uses gamification strategies to assign points to individual staffers based off of the work they've done - make a sale, earn a point. Since it's hosted on a digital platform, peers are able to view the rankings at any time, congratulate other employees for hitting milestones and review what rewards are available.
"Employee rewards and recognition can transform workplace culture."
Implementing this program encourages salespeople to take pride in what they do. In turn, this develops a sense of meaning for the work being done, which improves workplace morale. Most importantly, management can use it to inspire staff to boost metrics where they're failing behind without being heavy-handed about it.
Take qualified leads as an example. Roughly 9 in 10 clients are willing to refer a customer, but just 10 per cent of salespeople actually ask them to, according to The Brevet Group. By creating an objective that would reward employees for generating referrals, organisations would likely see that metric increase over time - and they're able to track that through the digital employee rewards program.
To truly rise above competition and spur financial growth, organisations have to get the most out of their employees. Performance-based employee rewards are an innovative way to gamify the sales process and provide recognition and incentives to salespeople that achieve or outperform their goals. By creating a culture that puts a premium on excellence, you'll see more of the staff striving to reach it.
Interested in learning more about sales incentives? Contact a Power2Motivate representative today.