If there has been a decline in employee sales at your organization, the problem may not be with the product or the prospects but instead be with employee morale. While employees are partially motivated by a desire to earn an income, compensation is often not enough to maximize your company’s sales. Start placing your employees on the right path through your sales training process.

Teach by Example

Try to lead by example. As a sales trainer, consider the behaviors that you want to see from the sales representatives, and think of ways you can demonstrate these behaviors. For instance, if you would like the sales representatives to be more detail-oriented in how they track sales data, find ways to make your sales training organization more data-driven.

Teach Them Trust

Cultivate trust in new sales representatives. When you teach new reps about meeting their sales goals, help them develop trust in their managers. Work with sales managers to build trusting relationships with reps, and ask each group what they can do to achieve this goal.

Give Them the Right Tools

One way to improve the morale of sales representatives is by making it much easier for them perform their jobs. Train sales reps to use the tools that they have, and help them understand how they improve and streamline the sales process. (For example, automatic phone dialer programs will allow them to place more sales calls more quickly.) This training will help employees make more sales as they connect to more customers more quickly.

Find Other Ways to Motivate

Use other incentives in addition to commission. For instance, consider providing a free vacation to a sales representative who has the highest number of sales or who has placed the most cold calls. These types of rewards make work more interesting and fun, which can be much more motivating. Rewards and other motivators are a great way to help achievement-focused employees feel like they are recognized.

Understand What Motivates New Employees to Become High-Performers

One of the difficulties of understanding what will motivate new sales representatives is that different people are driven by different things. For example, high-performing sales professionals are usually motivated by the desire for personal achievement and may become demotivated if they experience ceilings. When training new reps, make sure they understand all the possible motivators at your sales organization. Showing new reps what is available to them will give them a better perspective on what they can achieve.

Pick Out Potential Average Sales Representatives

For those representatives who are always lagging behind, it simply may not work to keep them on your team. But you will want to devote the most attention to those representatives who are in the middle, because with training, they can significantly improve the profitability of your company.

When training new sales reps, take notes of the new recruits who stand out and the ones who may become your organization’s average performers. Provide team leaders with the necessary information on their new sales representatives so they know on whom they should focus in future trainings.

Respect the New Sales Representatives

Ask new employees how they would like to be managed. An experienced sales representative will likely have a general understanding of their preferences and can guide their supervisors through the management process.

When training new sales reps, it’s easy to treat them as young and inexperienced. Some may have very little experience, but it’s important to remember to boost their confidence early on. If you treat new employees with respect in the training process, you’re setting them on the right foot to begin their sales journeys.