80% of sales require at least five follow-ups to close the deal, according to statistics compiled by Propeller. Facing that many rejections and still pressing on calls for a high level of motivation.

One of the best ways to keep your team rearing to go is to incorporate motivation into your sales training and workshops.

Training and motivation strategies

Here are some strategies you can use to increase your team's selling abilities while keeping them motivated.

Encourage collaboration among salespeople

When team members are comfortable with each other and supportive, they have higher chances of succeeding. In addition, they leverage each other's strengths to create collective success.

A healthy level of competitiveness is also important to encourage reps to go for gold. Celebrate successful employees by creating leaderboards or performance-based rewards. Remember to recognize different levels of achievement, not just the top performers. For instance, have a category for:

• Most Improved
• Best at Prospecting
• Highest Leads Generated

Also, consider including team exercises in your training so reps can learn to work with each other. For instance, you can use role play and team games during workshops. In addition, encourage events that allow reps to mix and mingle outside of work.

Evaluate individual skills, strengths, and weaknesses

Evaluating your team's strengths and weaknesses allows you to maximize the group's strengths. When you understand the group's dynamic, you can match different people and create smaller groupings to enable reps to complement and learn from each other.

In addition, once you identify individual categories, you can tailor your courses to cater to different learning styles. For example, you can introduce more training games to help visual learners or use group activities for social learners. By varying your methods, you allow the entire team to grow confident and perform better.

It's also important to keep the feedback channels open. Constructive feedback helps the team achieve goals by allowing members to help each other. By creating an environment and culture where everyone is free to share without hurting feelings or involving egos, the team has more chances of success.

Provide resources

By empowering your reps with a library of resources, you can help the team become more confident in their abilities and have a reference point when they need to.

A resource bank will also allow your team to keep up to speed with the latest information and strategies that will help you score more deals. You can include materials such as:

• the latest sales journals
• videos and informational booklets
• previously recorded sessions of your workshops

Plan adequately

Sales reps already have a lot on their plate, from prospecting to closing deals and all the administrative work in between. If the training programs take up too much of their time, they are likely to end up overwhelmed and unmotivated.

You can maximize time to help your employees focus on relevant information through proper planning.

Consider creating a schedule that outlines how often you will have workshops, how long they should last, and when to hold refresher programs. It also helps to plan agendas for each training session in advance to keep courses running smoothly and within the set timeframe.

Develop analytical and soft skills

Technical skills alone aren't enough to bring success in sales. So, it's important to include soft skills coaching in your training programs to equip reps for success.

Success is a powerful motivational tool. Once reps are more confident, they are often better placed to deal with objections and resonate more with customers.

Some of the soft skills that are important in sales include:

• time management
• communication
• adaptability
• problem-solving
• teamwork
• creativity
• leadership
• interpersonal skills
• persuasion
• active listening

Make training interesting and fun

By adding some fun elements to your training, you can keep your reps focused and excited to learn more and perform better. Consider making courses as interactive as possible to keep reps engaged throughout the program.

For instance, you can use interactive lessons and gamified practice to help them retain more knowledge, which can contribute to self-assurance and higher performance.

Remember to shake things up now and then to keep your team intrigued and rearing to learn.

Final word

Motivation is an integral part of keeping sales teams on track especially given the taxing amount of follow-ups and preparation involved. By providing adequate training, you empower your teams to perform better, which can motivate them to keep going. Remember to incorporate soft skills training into your courses and workshops to help your team become well-rounded.