Building a strong and positive company culture should be one of your top priorities as a sales manager since there are vast benefits to creating an open and friendly working environment for your team. A pleasant environment can create a substantial boost in employee job satisfaction and productivity, which ultimately profits the company through increased efficiency and employee retention. A great company culture is the glue that holds many corporations together.

Employee retention is not the only incentive to invest in the company’s culture as one report finds that 94% of executives and 88% of employees believe corporate culture is directly tied to the success of a company. The study also found that those who described their company as having a distinct culture also felt happy and valued at work. Other great reasons to work on your company culture includes creating an attractive brand image which can make it much easier to recruit budding salespeople.

Millennials in particular – the new generation of leading salespeople who are predicted to take up nearly half of the workforce by 2020 – look for a strong company culture when deciding where to work, with some millennials claiming they would even take a pay cut of $7,600 for a better quality of working life.

So, with the vast importance of promoting a strong company culture in mind, what steps can you take to do this and how will this help increase your sales team’s performance?

Leverage technology to improve your sales team’s performance

Technology has come a long way in recent years and can contribute to company culture in the office in more ways than ever before. You can utilise the available technologies to promote collaboration among employees and teams. By installing an instant-messaging and data-sharing software (such as Microsoft Teams), workers can promptly communicate with each other even whilst sat at opposite ends of the office or to a sales member who is out of the office on business. This is a time-saving and flexible technological tool which allows for easier integration and socialisation between employees.

It’s vital to promote inter-team communication, particularly between sales and marketing teams who need to share ideas and key performance indicator (KPI) and progress updates with one another in order to collectively drive traffic, create leads and generate profit. Many office-based messaging programmes also have a shared system to host files on – which is also great for easier collaboration between the teams and enables multi-platform accessibility of files.

To further promote an open and inclusive company culture which is based on honest communication, you can provide an anonymous digital feedback system for employees to ensure everyone’s voices can be heard, even if they don’t feel comfortable speaking out at company meetings. In addition, as a manager and leader, having a public calendar that your team can view and request meetings with you on can make team members of all levels feel valued and supported at work. Ensuring you allow open communication, feedback and collaboration leads to better organisation, increased productivity and improved job satisfaction.

Coach your team

When managing a sales team, it’s important to spend time coaching them. While it’s good to inspire independence, trust and autonomy within your team, they should first feel properly taken care of and given the necessary guidance to tackle their jobs in the most efficient way. Coaching allows you to share your best sales practices with them and in turn, increase productivity and morale while also allowing your team to feel that you are investing in their progress and dedicating time to them.

You can also use this time to provide honest feedback to maintain an open and transparent relationship with your team. Let them know what you require of them and similarly, ask for feedback from them as well regarding their likes and dislikes within the job. Considering where their interests and skills lie, and utilising that, is highly beneficial to the smooth running of your team.

Promoting learning and growth at every level also encourages employees to stay engaged at work and progress their sales and leadership skills – which is highly advantageous as 86% of companies face an urgent need to develop new leaders.

Give verbal recognition and rewards

Salary is a great incentive for employees but in terms of employee retention, it can’t compete with the value one gains from being recognised as an esteemed member of the team. Appreciation can be expressed through verbal recognition of hard work at internal reward ceremonies. Rewarding an employee for a particularly admirable trait (for instance, brilliant customer service) is a great way of promoting similar behaviour in other members of the team. Inspiring friendly competition within team members can also boost productivity and engagement by a significant amount.

You can also allow employees to sponsor and celebrate each other’s achievements through a nomination scheme which can be very empowering and motivating. Additionally, this promotes social bonds, understanding and appreciation between the different teams.

Get advice from BMS Performance

At BMS Performance, we understand what a company needs to succeed in 2019 and it begins with recruiting the right staff for your sales and marketing teams. With 15 specialist divisions focusing entirely on the talent in your field, we can offer guidance on the current skills and experience available on the market. Get in contact with us today to see how we can help your business.