The Benefits of Team Goals and Bonuses Video

In this Sales Leadership Quick Tip video, I want to share the benefits of team goals and bonuses and why they will work for your sales team. In search of ways to motivate a sales team, leaders often turn to individual incentives and competition to stir things up. I found this approach motivates a smaller portion of most team members, while team goals, bonuses, and incentives produce more consistent results. There are three reasons why you should focus on team goals and bonuses.

Most people will fight harder as a team member than they will individually. For example, if an individual sales person, in general, isn’t having a great month, he/she knows their sales month will end. Then on the first day of the next month, they have a clean slate. You’ve also heard the word “sandbagging” where if they’re not going to hit their goal, they might carry an order over for the week. They can wait another month to get paid, and having an extra sale for the new month will make them feel like they have an advantage. On the other hand, every order counts for the current month when you are working on a team goal. A team goal will take away that sandbagging approach.

A team goal and bonus fosters a team culture. Each member is trying to help each other. Members of the team will share what is working for them. Team members will ask questions of each other and they will learn together. A team goal will develop a sense of accountability for each member.

It’s more fun to win as a team. When I was a sales person I had a sales team where one member was most often the top go-getter. Fortunately for him he was earning a lot of money and I’m sure it was fun for him at home. But walking up to his team and saying, “Hi, I’m the winner again.” was not as much fun. But winning as a team! Now those meetings are fun. We did it all together. By having team goals, you can develop more of a team culture which leads to learning, accountability and helping at team selling.

There are three things to keep in mind if you adopt team goals and bonuses.

1. You need a sales manager or owner who believes in the team concept and will develop a team culture. Your salespeople will be watching and if everyone on the team isn’t putting in their 100%, they’re going to pull back.
2. The other thing that needs to be in place is accountability. You do need to have expectations set and regular monitoring of individual and team goals.
3. Lastly, you need to have some success. The team needs to see evidence that the team focus actually helps them as an individual sales person and that will only come with time. That is where leadership is really important.

Go ahead and focus on the benefits of team goals and team bonuses and enjoy that team spirit. I hope you have some wins.

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