Your sales reps are the lifeblood of the sales team, and the sales team is what keeps your career afloat. If you don’t know what motivates them, how do you expect to put them in the right direction? How can you be a good sales manager to them?

I once asked a colleague friend who was having problems with one of her sales reps.

“What motivates him?” I asked her. She paused for a minute. Then she said, “Uhmm, money, I think.“

The words “I think” cinched it with me. You don’t guess what motivates your sales reps. It’s either you know it or you don’t. It came as no surprise that my colleague friend was having problems.

To find out what’s happening in your sales reps’ lives, to know what motivates them, you need get out of your own little world that is your cubicle, walk up to their desk, and simply ask him or her. The trick is to establish a personal connection.

Then find out what motivates them.

It should be noted that a sales manager without this kind of immensely valuable information about his or her sales reps is an inefficient one – a seagull type of sales manager, something we had discussed previous posts. Simply put, finding out exactly what motivates them provide precious insights about your sales reps’ motivations, their likes and dislikes. Refer to it whenever you need to motivate them, even if it’s just praise for a job well done.

When your sales reps do a good job, it means YOU are doing a great job. That’s how motivating your sales reps and putting them in the right path means helping yourself achieve your own goals.

What else do you ask your sales reps to find out what motivates them? Share them by leaving a comment below.

So you really want to learn how to motivate your sales reps?
Here’s the “secret sauce” that 99% of average sales managers NEVER use and if they do, they screw it up
So here the right way to so it – use the “Masterful Praising”. Here’s how you do it. Right after they do something “praise-worthy” take this three step approach: 

1. Look them in the eye or if on the phone stop and emphasize your words clearly and distinctly, telling them exactly what they did correctly in specific terms.
2. Pause for effect. Praise intermittently, not always on every little thing. Keep it a bit of a mystery as to when you will praise.In doing this the salesperson will never know exactly when the praise will come, so they always will be wondering when the next praise will come. This is then the motivator. Salespeople will work twice as hard once they get a few praisings under their belt.
3. Be specific. Be specific in your praise – don’t just say “nice job” or “good work”. In fact if you do it that way, then don’t even bother!Instead, say “Hey Tim that was great work being so persistent to finally secure the appointment for us to propose to the Simpson account. I know it took a lot of effort on your part. I appreciate it”.People will continuously repeat activities that they reinforced by.Reinforce the ones you want repeated, they will be clamoring for you to deliver them praise.It’s the human nature. Use the laws of human nature to get your salespeople to be doing more of the things you want them to do.

There is an important corollary to this which is especially effective for use in getting new or struggling salespeople to do the right things, even if they don’t get them exactly right.

If a salesperson shows progress on a task but cannot fully complete it due to lack of knowledge or skill, the average sales manager withholds praise and approval until they get it exactly correct.

The truly great sales manager praises every correct step along the way and praises even more when it is done to completion. If you truly want to get your salespeople to perform without you, then here is the key!

The most important idea here is that especially when someone is just starting; catch them in the act of doing something correct. At first approximately correct, and gradually move them to exactly correct.