Sales motivation can make the difference between a company growing or stagnating. Your offering can have all the competitive advantages in the world, and your team can be trained in all the best scripts and techniques, but it’s your sales team’s willpower that gets them to dial, email, and message their leads. Consider the stats: 67% of sales reps don’t expect to meet quota this year, and 84% missed it last year.

It’s the job of sales leaders to keep their teams motivated during the good times and the bad. So what’s the best way to provide sales motivation to your team? Let’s talk about 9 sales motivation techniques that work, according to the experts.

1. Pay attention to your core performers’ motivations

To spark motivation on a team, I first try to understand what motivates each of the sellers individually. Do they like a financial bonus or reward? Do they prefer recognition, or a virtual coffee with a leader in the company for good work? Once you know what inspires and motivates them, you can hold blitz hours to get more activity to happen, and reward reps accordingly. You can set a big quarterly or annual team goal. Then, through each person’s style, inspire and reward in the ways they most appreciate. 

To put this into practice, start by having one-on-one conversations between sales management and reps to find all possible motivations, then send out surveys to ask reps to rank them in order of importance. Find patterns in sales performance and motivators, and use the data for follow-up discussions about compensation plans, prizes for sales contests, and more. Pay special attention to what drives top and mid-level performers to ensure the average sales continue to climb.

2. Make sure they know you’re in their corner

“Make sure your team knows you’re in their corner. Salespeople don’t need rah-rah hype. They need to feel supported and challenged in the right ways. You need to know and grow them as whole people, not just walking quota figures. It can be easy to forget that your reps have a life outside of work. If they know you are invested in their success – not just their revenue number – they’re far more likely to stay engaged and have the resilience to push through the tough times.”

Start by understanding what they do every day and recognizing them for activities that yield results like booking demos and getting meetings with new logos. This can be as simple as taking them out for a coffee or a quick mention about their efforts at the next sales team meeting. Celebrate progress, not just results. Motivation isn’t about waiting for the big win — it’s about reinforcing the behaviors that lead to it.

3. Focus on small wins

“Focus on the small wins that lead to the bigger wins. How many connects did your team have today? How many deals progressed to the next steps? How many current customers offered referrals? Tracking revenue is great, but there are smaller moments in sales worth celebrating. These small wins today can become big wins tomorrow!”

When you only pay attention to final sales numbers, motivation can stall out. Small wins can happen every day, so break down a big sales goal from insurmountable to achievable. Start by creating a sales performance checklist that encompasses the activities which lead to stronger sales. Build a dashboard in your CRM system to track and publish those results, and award appropriate prizes and recognition.

4. Accept responsibility as a leader

Sales professionals say unrealistic sales targets are a top reason for considering a job change. Another reason is sales goals and sales compensation not being aligned, so reps feel their effort isn’t worth it. It’s important to set clear goals that are both within reach of the individual rep’s abilities and are high enough to encourage greater effort. Use historical sales records in your CRM to help set these. A good goal uses the S.M.A.R.T. framework.

5. Tie their goals to yours for big results

Sales reps will fall into different levels of performance and motivation. Consider rewards to suit a wide variety, not just the top tier. If there’s just one top prize for one big sales push, the high performers will fight it out while everyone else settles somewhere around quota, where their motivation runs out. Instead, think about how to tailor your targets:

• Set a first tier at a level the average rep hits, pulling up the lower performers who will typically try to skate with the bare minimum.
• Set a second tier that’s historically hit by fewer reps but is still achievable by the mean.
• Set a highest tier that only the best of the best could reach. Elite reps will see it as a minimum rather than a ceiling and shoot past it when able.

6. Invest in sales training and continual improvement

“If an individual on my team went to university or has ever paid for a course, I remind them that we are actually paying them money to learn their role. Often, salespeople blame missing their quota on ‘bad enablement’ or ‘bad training,’ when it’s really up to them to learn the role and study. I know for me, I didn’t pick up tech easily in my first sales role. I worked a lot on learning acronyms and shadowed the top salespeople around me whenever I could.”

Make sure it’s clear that you support continuous learning for your team. Personalized training can give them the confidence to keep going. Start by asking for feedback from your reps about where they are struggling. Then, Invest in sales enablement tools that offer training at scale. Make it more enticing with a prize – you can offer Sales Performance Incentive Funds (or SPIFFs) tied to training.

7. Invest in burnout-reducing sales software and automation

“The best advice I have for motivating a sales team is to focus on helping them individually. Focus on their “why”—their purpose—and what they are working toward. Sometimes, individual sales reps or entire teams hit a slump and struggle with performance. Instead of dwelling on past failures or missed opportunities, help them focus on their potential and the opportunities ahead, aligning their motivation with their personal goals.Another key strategy is to remind them of past successes. Share experiences where they have succeeded before, highlight customer testimonials, and show them that both they and the company have made a real impact. There are still more people out there who need what they have to offer.”

Sales leaders get busy, but the biggest part of their job is keeping high performers happy and boosting the sales of low performers. 77% of reps report being most satisfied by focused, one-on-one coaching. It’s hard to make time for everyone, but it can pay dividends in terms of sales motivation. A good technique is to have leaders develop a skill vs. will matrix. Place salespeople in each quadrant, and use the strategies to help motivate each in the way that works best for them.

9. Shake up the monotony for inspiration

“I’ve found that breaking the monotony and normal routine is an effective way to get a team out of a rut. Whether it’s planning a team outing during work hours or changing location and environment for a while, doing something that shakes things up is most effective in my experience.”

This last tip is a simple one, but it’s also very easy to achieve. Surprise the team in the middle of a difficult quarter with a new place to work, a day trip, or some other change to shake out of a rut. Plus, it serves as a little “just because” treat for the team that makes them feel valued by the company and their leaders. The only caveat to this technique is to use it sparingly, and make sure surprises don’t come right before deadlines and quotas, when the team might not appreciate time away from their desks.

Lead with empathy, creativity, and investment to spark motivation

Sales motivation isn’t a pick-me-up in a slow quarter. It’s a continual effort from sales leaders to power their teams. The tactics can be simple or complex, but always approach your team where they are, not where you think they should be. Remember that they could sell anywhere, and they’re choosing to sell for you.