How To Become a Motivational Sales Leader

Motivation is a challenge for most outbound sales organizations, especially during the summer months. Without the right strategies, it’s difficult to keep your team on track to hit revenue goals. Our latest guest on the Predictable Revenue podcast shared his best tips to become a more motivational sales leader.

Rene Zamora is the founder of Sales Manager Now, a Fractional Sales Management consulting firm, and the author of Part-Time Sales Management. Rene is one of the pioneers of the fractional sales management industry and has plenty of insight to keep your team on track to hit quota.

What does it mean to be a motivational sales leader?

As any sales leader knows, the hiring process is pivotal for building a top-performing sales development team. Strong motivation is critical for a successful career in outbound sales, so start looking for that drive early on in your hiring process. Have potential candidates complete personality assessments to determine their level of motivation.

Once you’ve assembled the best possible outbound sales team, there are two main ways you can increase the motivation of your sales development reps (SDRs): 

Removing Obstacles

Listening to your reps is the best way to improve as a sales leader. When an SDR brings up an issue, make sure you follow up. If an SDR to brings up the same issue more than once, it means they didn’t feel heard the first time.

Once you’ve identified an issue, don’t just fix the symptoms–look for the root cause. If there’s a product delivery problem, for example, go to the leadership team to find out why. If your reps don’t have the information they need to sell, find out where the bottleneck is and fix it.

When you address these issues, it reminds the team that their sales leader will take care of them. Make it easy for them to do their job and they’ll reward you with better motivation and more deals closed.

Providing Tools

On a similar note, you should provide whatever tools and systems your outbound sales team requires. This could be anything from a CRM software to apps, playbooks, and training. Set clear expectations for each SDR, so they know exactly what they should be doing every day, month, and quarter.

The best way to enable sales development is to create systems. There should be a clear process for how to handle objections, navigate different scenarios, and for reps to see what resources are available to them. All of these systems should be documented in an outbound sales playbook.

If you need help developing or documenting your processes, reach out to our coaching team. We can help you with playbook creation, call flow, team structure, and more! 

How to stay motivated as an SDR

As an outbound sales rep, your energy can make or break your success. While you should aim to approach each call with a positive attitude, the fact of the matter is that it isn’t possible to feel 100 percent every day.

The first step is to recognize when you’re having an off day. If you don’t feel good about what you’re doing, you won’t be able to do your job well. That’s when it’s time to take a break. Go for a quick walk, read something uplifting, or start a conversation with a positive coworker. If you’re struggling, reach out to your sales leader.

What you can do as a sales leader

Setting goals is a great way to keep your sales development team motivated. That said, make sure your targets are both realistic and achievable. Don’t just set goals for the sake of setting goals. 

As a sales leader or someone in a sales management position, it’s your job to provide accountability for the team. If you’ve assigned quotas, how are you monitoring each rep’s performance? Which metrics are you tracking?

Next, make sure you have clear expectations for each role. Have a look at your SDR job descriptions and compare them to the real thing. Are you asking your reps to take on tasks outside of their job description? 

Sometimes a sales leader will choose to keep certain SDRs on their team, even if they consistently underperform. Have a hard look at your team to make sure you have the right people in the right roles–or if any of them might be better suited to a role outside of outbound sales.

Maintaining motivation in outbound sales

Being a motivational sales leader requires listening to your team, active problem-solving, and establishing clear expectations. With the right strategies in place, your team will consistently hit their revenue targets all year long.

If you want to connect with Rene to learn more about sales management and how to become a better sales leader, visit SalesManagerNow.com.

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