5 Surefire Ways to Inspire Your Sales Team

Lori RichardsonSome sales leaders don’t think they have time to spend coaching and inspiring their teams. If that’s the case in your organization, noodle on this: How much time are your sales reps wasting with prospects who aren’t going to buy anytime soon?

Employees who lack inspiration and motivation are really good at killing time and making themselves look busy. And when that happens, your sales numbers will certainly suffer.

Lori Richardson, founder and CEO of Score More Sales, shared some solid tips in her presentation, “Five Surefire Ways to Inspire Your Sales Team,” at the Inside Sales Virtual Summit. See her presentation in the embedded YouTube video below.


Here are five surefire ways to inspire your sales team:

1. Be Inclusive

Initially, you must give everyone a fair opportunity. Eventually, you’ll have to make decisions about the amount of time you should invest in each sales rep based on the potential payout. You probably have A players, B players and C players. It might not be wise to invest a ton of time in your C players because you might not see a big payoff. But don’t write off one of your reps prematurely simply because this particular rep has a different style. Many sales leaders make this mistake.

2. Be an Example

Are you prompt? Are you professional? As sales leaders, we have to set the bar high for ourselves as well as our teams. Are you engaged? Sales leaders often look distracted while they are talking to their reps. Sometimes, it’s as simple as checking your smartphone when somebody is trying to tell you something important. It may seem insignificant, but it sends the wrong message. How can you expect your reps to stay engaged if you looked distracted and you’re the one who’s supposed to be setting the tone?

3. Be Visionary

Find creative ways to inspire and motivate your sales team. Winning is important to many sales professionals. So, giving your reps awards, badges and other recognition can be highly effective. Gamification is the process of using game thinking and game mechanics to solve problems and engage users. This has been found to help motivate and inspire the folks on your team in a way that a sales manager can’t do with a conversation. Take the best ideas that others are using and see how you can apply them to your own environment and your own team.

4. Coach to Strengths

In B2B selling, regular coaching can improve performance dramatically. Regular coaching is a combination of coaching and training. Follow-up is crucial. Your reps will learn through repetition and reinforcement. It’s amazing how many sales leaders don’t make time for regular coaching of their sales teams. Everyone on your team has different motivations. Identify these motivations and coach accordingly.

5. Be in It for the Long Haul

Invest in brainstorming sessions with your sales team. Innovative ideas and solutions emerge from these sessions. Once in a while, you’ll run into a sales rep who says, “I’ve tried everything and nothing works.” That’s a good opportunity to have a mini-brainstorming session. Write down all of the tactics the rep has tried and brainstorm other possibilities.

Strong leaders build strong sales teams. Inspiring your reps won’t be easy, but it will definitely be worth it. You should be in it for the long haul and invest in your team with regular coaching and support.

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