I’m continually amazed at how many sales managers have absolutely no clue what actually motivates their sales reps.

Although I suppose I shouldn’t be, I’m even more surprised to the degree that this ignorance pervades the highest level of the sales management food chain. Let me explain…

Not long ago, I was in yet another long, desperately un-productive, complete waste-of-time sales management meeting with “the top sales brass” at the company, sitting around a conference room table brainstorming how we could all collectively get the sales force “more motivated”, while at the same time, increasing morale. At this point in our company, sales force morale among many of the salespeople was extremely low due to a number of factors I won’t get into here. But suffice to say, the sales reps in one particular division (not mine, thankfully) were leaving at a rapid pace due to our operational incompetence.

Seeing this disturbing trend, the Senior Vice President of Sales called this meeting to come up with ideas. She was desperately trying to come up with an idea of how we could motivate this bedraggled sales force in one fell swoop, with one grand sweeping initiative. Although I give her a lot of credit for trying, if you have been a reader of this blog, you know that “motivating” your sales force can never happen in “one fell swoop”…but I digress.

She was looking for ideas, then said emphatically, “let’s just start recognizing everyone with emails and voicemails of their big achievements – better yet, lets fill out a form every time one of your salespeople does something praiseworthy and submit it to me so I can then send a group voicemail – after all, every sales person loves to be praised publicly…”

The other sales mangers in the room all agreed – praising the VP, stating they thought it this was a “great idea” and ”that will really work”, all getting behind this “new motivational initiative“.

I just sat slumping in my chair, not saying a word…

Noticing my silence, the VP asked me why I was not “as enthusiastic as the others” about the initiative.

Not wanting to be only dissident, slowly I started talking. I simply explained to her and to the rest of the sales management team, that out of the sales reps that I had reporting to me, only half of them actually enjoy or are motivated by public praise. I added that for most of my reps, private one-on-one praise is what motivates them the most – a few even told me outright that they hated public praising, saying it was downright embarrassing…

She sat in stunned silence as I relayed to her why and how I knew this.

Bottom line: I just simply asked them.

This brings up our point on motivation: if your sales reps are the lifeblood of your career, you rely upon them to pay your commissions and their effectiveness is what sustains as well as advances your career…then why on earth wouldn’t you know exactly what motivates them and exactly how to motivate them?

If you don’t know what motivates them, how do you expect to prompt them in the right direction? How can you possibly expect to be a good sales manager to them?

Without knowing what motivates your sales team, you’re traversing the Arctic without a compass in a blizzard with white-out conditions….meaning, you’re totally blind.

You must find out 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. 

If you want to get all 10 Questions you need to ask them and exactly how to motivate your sales team and then exactly how to implement it, then you’ll want to get our video and audio on this subject. You can also get it on the sidebar of this blog.

In the meantime, what do you think? Can you motivate your sales reps by just winging it? Or do you have another method to motivate your sales team? Post a comment below and tell me what you do.