Your sales team have an unenviable job. It takes courage to pick up that phone to speak to strangers on a daily basis. The chances of rejection are high, and with rude responses and cut off phone calls a constant in the lives of your poor sales team, it’s little wonder that their morale will drop occasionally. It’s a high-pressured job, and their morale will fall even further if they aren’t meeting the targets you have set them.

And when morale drops?

You will see a lack of productivity within your team. They will fall into bad habits when they lose passion, and profits will fall. You will hear your team moaning to one another about the rudeness of strangers, the sales targets they are missing, and the emotions they are feeling. You will see a rise in sick days when they can’t face coming into work, either through the health consequences of stress, or because they don’t want to suffer the risk of failure and rejection for another day. And you will probably see a change in attitude towards you and your business.

If you are relating to what we are saying, know this: your team need a pick-me-up. They need something to boost their morale and improve their working day. By looking after your sales team, you will see a turnaround in their behaviour and in your profits.

Can you make the lives of your team a better one? Can you improve their morale? Yes, especially if you consider the following.

• Celebrate your team’s successes. Rather than criticising your team on their lack of sales, focus on the positives. When they do make a sale, reward their good performance. There are loads of ways you can reward your team, from small prizes to a raise in pay, so offer something that will cause them to push through the challenges they face each day.
• Bring in the experts. if your sales team are struggling to find positive leads, there could be a good reason for this. They may not be getting the right referrals, for example, or they may be missing out on the right demographic. The more time they spend speaking to the wrong people, the more time they will spend facing rejection and missing targets. Therefore, bring in a sales consulting company to get to the bottom of the problem. They will help you and your team make changes, and motivation should rise as a result of this positive intervention.
• Adjust your targets. If you are pushing your team too hard, and getting them to meet targets that may be unrealistic, then you are going to cause them a lot of stress and anxiety. You need to change the goalposts, giving your sales team greater motivation when the likelihood of success is increased. Use these goal-setting strategies to make the lives of your sales team easier, and improve their morale as a consequence.
• Have some fun! All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, makes Jill a dull girl, and gives people reason to consider you a tyrannical boss, so start to bring in the fun. Outside of work hours, take your staff on retreats, go out for meals and drinks occasionally, and organise parties. Inside of work hours, provide your team with a better breaks room, with fun additions such as a ping-pong table, where they can relax and let off steam before they have to get back to work. They will feel better as a result and will have added impetus to push forward to meet the targets you have set them.
• Use the latest software. The job of your sales team is a tough one, but you can make it easier. By using the latest tools available to businesses today, you will streamline work processes, enhance your team’s performance, build morale, and increase the chances of your business making a profit. What’s not to love? Provided your team aren’t tech-averse, it is worth investing in some of the software tools in the previous link, and in training to improve your team’s effectiveness.
• Treat your team as individuals. Your sales team aren’t mindless worker drones, coming into work each day purely to build your sales quota and make profits. They are people with real feelings, worries, and dreams. By getting to know them, and by letting them see that you value their place in your workforce, you will give them the added impetus to work harder for you. Provided you have also considered some of the other items on this list; you will also improve their overall morale and wellbeing at work.

Never undervalue your sales team. They have a tough job on their hands, but by following the advice in this article, you can improve both their effectiveness and feelings of self-worth. They will be happy, and when the fruits of their high-morale affect company profits, you will be happy too!