Quick Take: How to Keep Your Sales Team Happy & Productive

In this Quick Take episode, we’re breaking down how to keep your sales team happy and productive. 

You’ll not only learn why employee happiness and productivity go hand-in-hand, but also actionable ways to increase morale and sales numbers at the same time.

LINKS:

Matt Sunshine

The Center for Sales Strategy

Episode Transcript

Matt Sunshine (00:05):
Welcome to Improving Sales Performance, a
podcast highlighting tips andinsights aimed at helping sales
organizations realize, and maybeeven exceed, their goals.
Here we chat with thoughtleaders, experts and gurus who
have years of sales experiencefrom a wide range of industries.
I'm your host, matt Sunshine,ceo at the Center for Sales
Strategy, a sales performanceconsulting company.

(00:27):
In this Quick Take episode,we're breaking down how to keep
your sales team happy andproductive.
You'll not only learn whyemployee happiness and
productivity go hand in hand,but also actionable ways to
increase morale and salesnumbers at the same time.

(00:51):
With that, let's get started.
So it's really important todrive productivity in a sales
department.
Everyone knows that.

(01:11):
But there is an absolutecorrelation between employee
happiness, employee engagementand productivity.
They actually go hand in hand.
They actually go hand in hand.
A happy employee, an engagedemployee, is more productive
than someone who's not happy andnot engaged.

(01:32):
So how do you do that?
So let me give you a few waysthat you could.
You could increase engagement,increase happiness with your
team.
So, number one create aneffective onboarding process so

(01:54):
important the way you enter abusiness, the way you enter a
company.
Estimated that 90% of employeesdecide whether they want to
stay with a company within theirfirst six months and 16.45%

(02:15):
actually leave within theirfirst week.
Think about that for a second.
It takes a lot of time.
There's a lot of thought thatgoes into the whole recruitment
process and the selectionprocess.
So if you go through all ofthat and you know 16% of the

(02:37):
people that get hired leave intheir first week, wow, that's
too much.
That's way too much.
So you want to have happier andmore engaged employees.
One of the best things you cando is create an effective
onboarding program.
The second thing is have anopen door communication policy.

(02:59):
You know you can reallycounterbalance blind optimism,
right?
I mean it's blind.
Optimism is sometimesfrustrating for people.
You know everything's fine, youknow everything will be okay.
When it really isn't,especially, I mean it's kind of
being a little tone deaf and byletting your team know that, hey

(03:23):
, bad things are happening, orsales aren't where they need to
be, or revenue isn't where theyneed to be, or expenses are out
of control, by letting them knowthat that's happening, it's
good, it's also okay.
You need to let them know thatit's okay for them to come in

(03:45):
your office you have an opendoor and share with you a
conversation that they had witha customer or something where it
didn't go so well.
If all you ever hear is thereally good stuff, well then
you're not really getting verydeep and it's just going to
allow for frustration to happen,and people are frustrated.

(04:08):
They're not going to be ashappy and engaged as you really
want them.
That's important.
Also, ask your folks how theywant to be managed.
You know it might seem like alittle weird to ask them how
they want to be managed, but wereally believe.
I mean we have some tools atthe Center for Sales Strategy

(04:31):
and Up your Culture, ourdivision of our company that
focuses on company culture andemployee engagement.
We have some tools called likethe growth guide, where we
actually encourage you to sitdown with your folks and ask
them how they want to be managed.
What's important to them?
What would they want a managerto do or not do?

(04:56):
So asking your team how theywant to be managed is key.
It's such an important thing,and the next thing you can do to
really encourage more of aculture of engaged, happy
employees is eliminate tasksthat are not necessary.
I mean, especially in a salesdepartment, if you could cut

(05:19):
down on any of the tedious stepsor any of the little minutiae
things that you're asking yourfolks to do that would allow
them to go out and sell more.
It's good for you, it's goodfor them.
They're happier they'reproducing more.
You're happier, they'reproducing more.

(05:40):
A lot of times we have tedioussteps in our organization
because they've just been kindof Frankensteined in there.
Right, they're just.
That's the way we do it here,because that's the way we've
always done it here.
Well, maybe that's a system ora process from 15 years ago or
20 years ago.
That's really not necessarytoday.

(06:00):
Or maybe there's a better waythat you can do it.
And the next thing I wouldrecommend is to get to know your
staff individually, knowingwhat motivates them and what
drives them, investing in theirtalent, knowing them

(06:20):
individually and knowing whattheir individual strengths are,
so that you can set them up forsuccess.
So that you can set them up forsuccess.
If one person is really goodwith project management and
another person isn't.
Maybe there's a way to pairpeople together so that you're
getting the most out ofeverybody.

(06:40):
And the last thing for today toshare and boy.
There's a lot of things you cando to encourage employee
engagement and employeehappiness, and certainly you
know, if you want moreinformation on that, we have a
great blog over at our Up yourCulture website that talks about

(07:02):
this stuff every single week,producing just great content.
But one thing that you canabsolutely do is keep your team
up to date with changes going on.
Right, you've got to keep yoursales team or any team for that
matter in the loop when it comesto any product changes or

(07:22):
service changes.
You don't want them to becaught off guard.
You want them to be the firstto know, not the last to know.
You want them to be in the loopand make them feel as though
they're a really important partof the process, of what we're
doing around here.

(07:43):
When you don't include them orthey find out through the
grapevine, it's frustrating forthem and they don out through
the grapevine.
It just it's.
It's frustrating for them andthey don't feel as though
they're.
They're um that they matter,and you want to make sure that
you're showing them they matter,and one of the best ways to do
that is keeping them up to datewith any changes or improvements

(08:04):
um that that you have going onimprovements, um that that you
have going on.
This has been improving salesperformance.
Thanks for listening.
If you like what you heard,join us every week by clicking
the subscribe button for more onthe topics covered in the show.
Visit our website, the centerfor sales strategycom.
There you can find helpfulresources and content aimed at

(08:27):
improving your sales performance.