The recession has hit the property industry hard and having 20 telesales people on our sales floor has been fun to say the least. At the best of times you can motivate salespeople with the money but when the recession makes everything twice as hard and twice as long whilst giving you half the certainty it requires some new thinking.
I spent a great deal of time communicating with the sales team. The first and most important motivational factor in any market is keeping them in the big picture. If you start with a big picture of what’s going on they are more likely to stay motivated when the little things go wrong. In doing this you can also be honest with the negative things that happen as they feel part of the problem and will work hard for a solution. This one point of sharing the problems has actually bonded the team together incredibly.
I have always been a big believer in scripting everything to do with the sales team, as the market changed I provided written scripts on how to handle the negative feedback from clients. I would also produce educational material aimed at the clients that explained the issues in a much more positive light. This supported the sales team to deal with the problems. It worked really well and they felt a lot more confidence using the scripts and knowing that I had already pre-framed the solution for the clients.
We did focused sales sessions in two-hour blocks where the whole team would be on the phone calling clients with specific questions that I had pre-written. The fact that everyone was calling about the same thing gave the guys the confidence and motivation to stay on the phone. This created many sales opportunities just because they called.
We also do a lot of little things that combined just add the finishing touches and motivate all the team. Things like; having a Sales bell so they ring it every time a sale is made and the response from the team is that everyone claps and cheer, it’s small but effective. Giving small bonuses for first sales, most new clients, most improved and many others. In most cases the rewards are a single as a bottle of champagne or chocolates or perhaps just a congratulations email or team meeting recognition.
Live with passion,
Brett Alegre-Wood