The summer season is here. Warmer weather, long weekends, and kids out of school likely means vacation mode for your sales team and, unfortunately, your prospects. It’s no surprise that many sales professionals find it challenging to stay motivated in the summer. But lower productivity has a big downside—slowed sales growth for your company.
Summer can bring sales slumps in many industries, but the sluggish pace of business doesn’t mean your sales team can’t be productive. Amping up sales team motivation now is as important (or more) than any other time of year.
Use these 4 sales team motivation tips to keep your team engaged and energized during vacation season.
1. Plan a Sales Contest
Just like your prospects, your sales professionals are probably wishing for a day at a sunny beach or relaxing mountain getaway. Why not turn that daydream into motivation by offering a contest to win an end-of-summer vacation?
You can tie the contest to quota attainment, pipeline, scheduled meetings, or any other metric. Make sure the goal is achievable in the amount of time left in this summer.
The timing will benefit you in two ways:
- Your team will be motivated to perform during the listless summer months with their eye on the end-of-summer prize.
- You can find great rates on lodging and airfare towards the latter part of the season (think, end of August to early September).
If a vacation is out of your budget, consider offering smaller prizes—extra vacation days or tickets to an exciting Labor Day event in your area, for example.
2. Give Small Rewards
Your sales professionals simply can’t sell to customers who are on vacation. They probably can’t even get replies to emails or set up meetings. So if the summer slump has made reaching their numbers unrealistic, focus on celebrating and rewarding the small wins.
Set up short-term goals for your sales team over the summer by finding something that your team needs to work on, and focusing on that. Slower periods are a great time to hold brainstorming sessions where sales professionals can share their ideas for growing the business.
Maybe it’s a good time to increase social selling activity or local outreach. There are probably many things you’ve wanted to try but haven’t had the time. Whatever it is, downtime is a great opportunity to develop gap areas, and small rewards will help keep your team members engaged.
Your salespeople will feel motivated and appreciated with a fun reward—whether it’s a free lunch or dinner, a small prize for a weekend outing, or a company-hosted outdoor event.
3. Invest in Sales Training
When the team is moving at full speed, sales training can seem like a “nice to have” rather than a necessity. But sales training is essential all year round. Summer is the perfect time to fit in overdue EQ assessments, sales team insights, and skills development.
Identifying the areas your sales team needs to improve on and committing the time to develop them will have an incredible impact on performance and revenue once prospects are back in the office.
Whether it’s sales negotiation skills, consultative selling strategies, sales conversations, or simply refining a solid sales process, focus on a specific area your team can improve and use this time to get it done.
4. Break the Sales Target Down
A large sales target can feel discouraging, especially when all your salespeople are receiving “Out of Office” replies. Make the goal more manageable by breaking it into chunks.
Once you’ve broken down the numbers, work with your sales professionals individually to create business plans that help them get closer to the goal. The plan should include high-gain activities salespeople should be doing on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. You’ll want to meet regularly to check in on their progress, and to celebrate successes and debrief failures.
If this is a new practice for your team, summer is a great time to implement it. It will keep them motivated and engaged, and will also allow them to make the process a habit when business starts to pick up again in the fall.
Beat the Summer Slump
Don’t forget we all need to restore and have a more flexible approach to work-life balance. Summer (especially in some parts of the country) is a short season filled with fun and memories. Don’t let the dread of slowed business cloud over it.
In a world where time is a precious commodity, you can’t afford to let these short months go to waste. Help your sales team overcome the summer slump by implementing these four ideas. Keep your salespeople motivated and focused on improving their selling skills and you’ll have a happier, more successful team come fall.
Let’s Work Together to Reach Your Sales Goals
Beat the summer sales slump and stay on track to hit revenue goals with targeted sales skills training from The Brooks Group. Contact us today.
