Sales Job Motivation

Each salesperson is an individual. Personal working styles and ways of dealing with challenges are sometimes quite dissimilar, nevertheless, there are certain basic types. You can increase the effectiveness of staff motivation by deploying your salespeople according to their type. Motivation therefore is a core subject on all good management courses. By successfully classifying each member of the sales team, it is easier to find the right person for each job. Maximize effectiveness and classify!

The Practician

Likes sensibly standardized procedures and practical details. Products and services that he puts together and sells will certainly be useful to the purchaser.

Provide the necessary means to optimise his systems. Let him know his precise sales results, what he contributes to the business and be clear about aims and objectives. Avoid disrupting his working pattern.

The Introvert Salesperson

He is diligent, and does not cause sensations and does not require continuous updates or interaction with different people. He develops knowledge of his products and services down to the last detail.

Keep trouble away from him. Give him tasks in which his strengths come into play: detailed knowledge, the ability to work on his own, and concentration on a task. He needs praise – but not publicly. He values being informed in detail by his boss about the background to his tasks.

The Extrovert Salespeople

His interests are wide-ranging and he communicates actively with those around him. He does not like to spend too long dealing with one task or activity, detailed knowledge is not a virtue for him.

Do not give him long-term projects. Instead give him short to medium-term tasks in which he has to deal with people are more suitable.

Express your appreciation or positive customer feedback to him in front of his colleagues sometimes as this is important to him.

The Intuitive Sales person

He is similar to the Extrovert. He likes change and the grand gesture, not detail. He has a thirst for action, but cannot accept standardized activities in sales. Make use of his creativity when developing new sales strategies. Assign him to intellectually demanding projects. Allow him to experiment and to see across the demarcation lines.

Emotional type of Salesperson

He values a good working atmosphere and harmony in the team. He wants to be useful to other people and has a pronounced sense of justice. This person is ideally suited to a position in customer service or after sales support. He is very good at managing customers that demand high levels of personal contact and service.

Show him your esteem and support his work. When holding sales competitions, give preference to team oriented models which do not strain the atmosphere in his group.

The Rationalist The Thinker His decisions are based on pure facts, not on moods or feelings.

Like the Practician, he needs honest feedback about his level of performance. He would like recognition to be according to objective, intelligible criteria. Goals and objectives set for this type can be challenging but must be attainable. This is an area that managers are particularly interested in when attending management courses.

The Bureaucratic type of Sales people

He gathers all the relevant facts together and pronounces his judgment – black or white. Inflexibility is a virtue to him, he calls it loyalty to one’s principles.

He likes a manageable, well-ordered working environment. Keep uncertainty, changes and unresolved problems away from him. He is renowned for his 100% appropriate, flawless offers when requirements are specified precisely.

The Spontaneous Salesperson

He is spontaneous, flexible and has a healthy, realistic outlook. If necessary, he will willingly also concern himself with details. Official routine is a dead end for him.

Break up his routine with special tasks or extra duty assignments. Remain accessible to him and distance him from official routine. Do not impose any self-organization methods on him, they would just slow him down.

Average type of Sales person

He is not usually attention seeking and he does not normally have a great deal of ambition. A consistent working environment without big changes is one he likes the most. His success usually comes for being around for a long period of time and is therefore well known to his customers.

Make the working environment enjoyable and encourage a competitive spirit with the sales team.

These sales people are perfect for looking after customers where there are constant targets, and that rarely incur big challenges or problems.

People respond much better in an environment that suits their working style. Therefore by identifying the personality type, and meeting their working requirements, you can maximize business performance through high levels of sales team motivation. Motivation skills can also be further developed by receiving training on management courses.