Three ways to motivate your employees

Your goal is to be the go-to name in your field or industry, but you know you haven’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of seeing that level of success unless you can truly engage your customers and clients and keep them interested in your products and services.

And the only way to do that is to get your employees to engage those customers, to get them to commit to creating an exceptional experience for visitors so they do business with you, instead of buying from a competitor.

The big question is: How to get your employees to focus on the customer?

Employee motivation is an elusive creature. Motivating employees is perhaps the hardest thing any manager ever has to work toward. You worry that you’re not connecting, that your words don’t resonate deeply with your employees, and you struggle to figure out a magic formula.

And that’s good…

That’s because employees don’t come hard-wired to perform well in a vacuum. Unless you can find a way to connect powerfully with your crew, your sales are doomed to failure.

It may appear easier to just pay them more. But many times, no matter how much you pay them, after a period of time, their self-motivation wanes. That’s because when you employ people, you are also taking on all of their innate hardships and challenges; the things they deal with at home, along with the things that keep them up at night.

You are taking on the whole person, for all of the good and the bad that brings. Their natural tendency is to do less and less unless someone encourages them to do more.

When it’s time to open the business and welcome your customers each day, it becomes your daily challenge to help your employees put their best face forward, focus on serving the customer, and keep their eyes on the goal of closing as many sales as possible.

For some companies, this challenge is settled by simple performance metrics: Dollars. You close X number of sales, you get more money in your paycheck. But if you find yourself in a position where commission-based sales don’t work for your company, you still have to find new ways to motivate your employees.

Here are three ideas to help motivate your sales associates that don’t involve paying them based on the number of units they move.

1. Give Them Luxury
For your best performing associates, it is great to give them a little bit of something special. Maybe it’s a box of especially good chocolates at the end of a hard week. Maybe it’s a bottle of Scandinavian water they weren’t expecting. Maybe it’s a 30-minute massage.

Maybe it’s just a handwritten thank you note from you, the boss, who they look up to, mailed to their house.

Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter what the luxury is. It only matters that you took the time to think of them and thank them for their amazing work in an impromptu fashion.

People want to feel important. If you have good people on your team, make them feel important, and they are more likely to stay on your team.

To put a finer point on it, the more important or special that you make them feel, the more likely they will make your customers feel important. A caveat: don’t publish your criteria or you will have to do it each and every time much like a contest which defeats the purpose.

2. Give Them Time
Time is our most precious resource, and there is no sweeter way to reward one of your sales team than to give them a few hours of their time back.

So for your top performer this month, give them a half or full extra day off—with pay. Do it without any fanfare. Just let this person stay home, sleep late, take care of their kids, or go to a movie while you cover their shift. Don’t make a big deal about it. It’s not a contest; it’s a gift that you are giving them. And when they come back, they will be refreshed.

3. Give Them Space
If you’ve seen the movie Office Space, then you understand the importance of a red stapler. It represents something that is yours. Even if it’s only a stapler, you have earned it.

Office space—literally—can feel very much the same. It is home. When you designate physical space to an employee, you are telling that person that they have a place here. A permanent place. They matter.

This is not a small thing.

For your best associates, carve out a place in the back to set their photos of their kids and their dogs, a place for them to pin ridiculous things they might print out from Facebook—whatever. The ultimate goal is to let employees feel at home when they are at work.

This only works if you hire people who themselves have some internal motivation. You can’t motivate a rock to move—no matter what you try. If you feel stuck with certain unmotivated employees, don’t give up on motivation but do get rid of the rock-like employees.

When you have done the hard job of whittling down your applicants, onboarding them to your culture and giving them sales training, your number one job is to see what helps them stay motivated and change it up often. That way it keeps everyone wondering what they will get for hitting a goal, doing a good job or extending themselves for your customers’ benefit.

And that’s great motivation for everyone, not just your sales team.

Bob Phibbs is the CEO of The Retail Doctor, a New York consultancy. As a speaker, sales consultant and author of The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business, Bob has helped thousands of businesses since 1994. With over 30 years’ experience beginning in the trenches of retail and extending to senior management positions, his presentations are designed to provide practical information in a fun and memorable format. For more information on Bob, visit www.RetailDoc.com.