Nearly 90% of sellers are burned out, according to a new survey on seller motivation from Gartner. Industry analysts surveyed over 900 B2B salespeople, and more than half reported that they were looking for a new job.
But it’s not all bad news. There are plenty of things you can do to help sellers thrive, even in today’s disruptive environment.
Let’s take a look at why seller motivation is lagging, and explore some of the ways you can create better employee experiences that help your sales team flourish.
How the Last Two Years Have Affected Sellers
The Gartner report, How to Motivate and Retain Your Sales Team, reveals that “seller drag” is the core issue behind the current wave of seller unhappiness and burnout.
While seller drive is the motivation toward work, seller drag is the demotivation away from work. It shows up as “the tendency to procrastinate, feel bored, avoid work, struggle with focus and go through the motions.” According to Gartner, the four leading causes of seller drag are:
- Lack of career development opportunities
- Feeling insignificant within the company (like a “cog in a machine”)
- Unactionable or vague managerial feedback
- The heavy burden of repetitive, low-value administrative tasks
Sellers experiencing low drag achieved quotas that are 70% higher than struggling sellers…and only 7% of low-drag sellers were actively hunting for jobs.
Sadly, only 17% of the sellers in Gartner’s survey reported experiencing low levels of drag.
How to Create a Better Employee Experience for Your Sales Team
Think your sellers are dragging? Don’t worry. There are things you can do to combat seller drag and increase the satisfaction levels of your salespeople.
Address the sources of drag
Gather information about the experiences of your sellers by using one-on-one interviews, group feedback sessions, and anonymous surveys. You can also solicit ideas from your sellers about how to address the problems that surface during your information-gathering period.
Prioritize the list of tasks you need to implement to resolve the primary issues, and set clear goals and metrics to keep you accountable.
Create opportunities for advancement
The most common cause of seller drag is a lack of development opportunities.
To tackle this issue, provide sellers with clear information about the potential career paths in your organization. Work to standardize and publicize competencies across roles, so your sales reps can clearly see how they will be able to advance to the next level. Consider creating an initiative that allows sellers to test-drive new roles via developmental programs.
Empower your sellers
Your reps want to do meaningful work and have the freedom to make their own decisions about how to solve customer problems. Set up a process to empower sellers to innovate and establish processes that work for them, while setting up some guardrails that limit risk to your organization.
And when your sellers come up with successful innovations, find ways to export those ideas and processes to other areas of your organization.
For example, Showcase Workshop customers who have rolled out successful implementations of our content management and sales presentation system often find new ways to use Showcase software to improve working conditions and streamline workflows. Waikato Milking Systems created a Health and Safety app using Showcase, and now they can fill out incident reports that are automatically sent to managers and safety professionals.
While sales teams love Showcase for sales presentations, the flexible interface and robust features open up a wide range of use cases — which means your sales reps have room to innovate, and you have an opportunity to boost their morale by sharing those innovations.
Your Field Teams Can Be Your Secret Weapon
Live events are back, and it’s becoming safer for your sales team members to meet with customers face-to-face.
According to a survey of sellers by Spotio, your field sales teams could even become your secret weapon against seller drag after 2+ years of pandemic restrictions.
Over 40% of Spotio survey respondents stated that they prefer face-to-face interactions for prospecting, compared to just 20% email lead generation. Despite the prevalence of remote selling over the past few years, many companies still see better results when selling face-to-face.
This means it’s the perfect time to reinvest in your field teams and make sure their motivation stays high as well.
Showcase Workshop empowers your field sales reps with the marketing and sales assets they need to capture customer attention quickly and easily — even without an internet connection. Presentations, interactive videos, technical specs, and other materials will always be at your sales reps’ fingertips, eliminating the need to carry bulky, inconvenient paper materials.
Using Showcase on mobile devices in the field doesn’t just deliver value to customers and make it easier to make sales — it also creates a better experience for reps, which can reduce seller drag and keep motivation high.
Revive Seller Motivation
Traditional ways of motivating sellers aren’t cutting it anymore — but taking a holistic approach to reducing drag can help you increase engagement and retain talent. Engaged reps will boost sales effectiveness, leading to increased conversions and a boost to your bottom line.
Find out more about how Showcase Workshop can help you empower sales reps by putting the assets they need at their fingertips, no matter where or when they’re selling.