Anyone who has managed a sales team knows that there are times when their sales team needs a little boost to stay motivated. Here are some tips to help your sales team keep motivated when sales are down and morale needs a lift:

Contests
Most true salespeople are competitive by nature. Contests are great ways to motivate salespeople to strive harder to achieve success, especially if they are competing against each other. Most contests need to be short-term, as the immediate gratification of a contest pay-off is critical for salespeople to stay engaged in the contest itself. The shorter contests are also easier to measure for sales managers, and keep them focused on helping their salespeople generate higher sales success. It is also critical to remember that tracking the success of each sales rep during the contest is very important, and sending out weekly updates to the sales team will keep each sales rep on track and motivated to win!

Daily/Weekly Cash Incentives
Sometimes, a simply daily or weekly cash incentive will be the boost you need for your sales reps. Base it on the number of contacts made that week, the highest dollar amount of sales in a given week or on a certain day, or the one who closed the most future business that week or day. Whichever it is, make sure all your salespeople are aware of the incentive in advance and can prepare to win the cash incentive. Also be sure to make the incentive lucrative enough to motivate the sales reps.

Trips
A longer term incentive, trips are a great way to ensure salespeople stay focused on keeping a steady pace to hit their sales numbers for the year. Trips can be exotic, like a cruise or a trip to Aruba, or they can be as simple as a trip to New York City or San Francisco. Something exciting that will keep the salespeople motivated and focused on hitting the end goal. To ensure the sales reps don’t give up, make sure you have “milestone” incentives throughout the course of the year, such as t-shirts, hats, keychains, etc that have logos of the trip destination on them.

Recognize success
Schedule specific times throughout the year to recognize successes of the key sales individuals. Salespeople love to be recognized for their accomplishments so make sure you take the time to recognize them for their efforts, and they will willingly go out on the edge to make sure they hit their sales numbers. Great salespeople will do whatever it takes to be recognized and will support you in the process.

Training
Continue to teach your salespeople how to be better. The more time you spend teaching and coaching your salespeople, the better equipped they will be to be successful. The training will also ensure your salespeople know that you care about them, their success, and that you will continue to invest in their careers. Key training on topics which are difficult for salespeople to grasp will help them overcome some of their biggest sales fears as they grow more confident in their sales careers.

Overall, knowing your salespeople as people is the first key to understanding how to keep them motivated and energized. Once you know your salespeople, you will be able to develop a strong incentive plan to keep them motivated to achieve success all year.