Tips & Tricks to Motivate A Remote Sales Team

Since remote work will continue to be the “new normal” for some time to come, sales leaders can successfully motivate their sales teams and keep hitting targets with a combination of skills and strategies.

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You want to motivate your sales team to meet their sales goals and close deals – but how do you do that when they’re working remotely?

Making remote sales work isn’t easy. With staff in different locations, it’s not like managers can gather the team around the water cooler and talk sales tactics. The good news? Telecommuting can be used as an advantage. As a small business owner or sales leader, you can motivate your remote sales team by making savvy use of your remote communication channel.

Since remote work will continue to be the “new normal” for some time to come, sales leaders can successfully motivate their sales teams and keep hitting targets with a combination of skills and strategies.

The advantages of a remote sales team

Leaders can still build exceptional sales teams while working remotely. In fact, leaders are at an advantage when it comes to improving their team performance. Sales teams can now rely on technology to approach buyers, make sales and improve their sales skills.

Done right, utilizing technology can elevate the selling process and motivate teams to become more creative in the way they approach clients and close deals.

Another advantage of a remote sales team includes the costs saved. The most obvious cost-benefit is the elimination of renting office space. Travel costs are also cut, allowing teams to utilize this free time to perfect their sales pitch, chase leads and nurture their client relationships.

How to keep your remote sales team motivated?

It might be harder to keep sales teams motivated when they’re working remotely. But, harder doesn’t mean impossible. Success relies upon how leaders can support their remote team and provide them with the tools to help them confidently transition to a virtual sales model.

1. Collaboration and communication is key  

Managing remote sales teams requires consistent communication. Without that traditional face-to-face office interaction, sales leaders need to harness technology to keep in touch with their team and to guide them on the remote selling journey.

Initiating short but frequent video calls, emails and messages through a dedicated communications channel such as Slack or Microsoft Teams keeps everybody in the loop and makes collaboration possible. Every individual is different, so take that time to find out which mode of communication works best for your team.

Collaborating with your sales team remotely should consist of discussing sales objectives, goals, giving tips when it comes to cold calling prospects, working on leads and discussing expectations. Sales leaders should also be willing to provide a detailed report to each team member detailing individual tasks and performance.

2. Provide the right tools

Your sales team needs the right resources in order to succeed remotely. From access to remote sales courses to a proficient customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Providing your remote sales team with tools and solutions to help them do their job is a must.

With the help of sales tools, remote teams can increase their productivity and motivation as well as improve their performance. Some sales tools to consider include:

• Lead generation tools
• Time management apps
• Cloud-based document sharing tools (such as Dropbox)
• Video Conferencing tools
• Scheduling tools
• Password managers
• Sales progress trackers

3. Invest in secure, scalable networking infrastructure

Since remote sales teams are working wholly online, it’s crucial to devote some time and money to implement a good cybersecurity plan. In order to mitigate security risks for your remote staff, you should invest in scalable networking infrastructure that will patch any vulnerabilities in your network and prevent exploitations of personal devices.

With more businesses moving to remote work, the risk of a cyberattack is even greater. Providing your remote team with secure remote access to resources, apps and data will keep your team, clients and business safe.

4. Celebrate the wins (big and small)

Remote workers can very easily fall under the radar and feel as if their efforts aren’t being noticed. Salespeople need to be heard and seen. Not only does this promote team bonding, but it gives your team members an added boost to their motivation and confidence, granting them the ability to better support their clients and stay on track of their sales goals.

Whether your team has had a great sales day or a poor sales day, acknowledging their efforts and providing quality feedback will keep motivation levels high even during those tough days.

5. Listen, empathise and encourage

It’s up to sales leaders to embody their title as ‘leader’ and to provide leadership to their sales team. How to do that? By seeing your team as people over salespeople. Remote sales team motivation is reliant upon feeling valued, heard and understood. It’s easy to view your workers as just cogs in the wheel when you can’t see them face-to-face.

They become a name behind a screen. A degree of trust is vital in making a remote sales team work. Sales staff don’t want to feel micromanaged or not trusted to do a good job.

What they need is a leader who can listen to them, empathise when challenges arise and provide them with encouragement. Inspiring motivation in your remote sales team can include:

• Setting clear expectations and encouraging your team to meet higher performance levels
• Encouraging social interaction and team building activities
• Checking in with their mental health
• Offer incentives (such as food or coffee vouchers)

Many businesses can succumb to the challenges of a mismanaged sales team when working remotely. While it’s not easy, there are many ways you can help to motivate your remote sales team and boost productivity. Telecommunications and modern technology is your friend and can be an extreme advantage when utilised correctly.

This provides your sales team with flexibility and the means to maintain their sales presence in many locations at the same time. Keeping your remote workers engaged is crucial to successful selling. Hopefully, the above tips can help improve the success of your remote sales team and inspire new strategies and processes to drive your sales forward.