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How to Keep Your Sales Team Motivated During the Holidays

By Paul Slezak - Dec. 25, 2022
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The holidays are meant to be fun. Right?

Technically yes. But for anyone running a sales team, the holidays can be a pretty stressful time if you’re stuck in the office staring at a revenue goal you may have set perhaps even 6 – 12 months earlier.

Your prospective clients may already be taking time out; your SDRs may be getting bombarded with ‘out of office’ replies to many of their automated emails; sales appointments may be down; and there may just be an imminent sense of gloom settling in amongst the team.

Even at a quiet time of the year, it is definitely possible to keep your sales team motivated.

What makes a tenacious, driven, ambitious, (and perhaps even egotistical) individual tick at this time of the year? There will usually be a gap between an individual sales person’s motivations and the company’s motivations. As a sales manager it’s your job to balance the goals of the individual and the needs of the business.

Key Takeaways:

  • Make sure you motivate your individual team members on a personal level the same way you would motivate the team as a whole.

  • Promoting healthy competition with a prize can help keep your employees motivated.

  • Give your staff a small gift or buy everyone lunch once a week during the holidays.

How to Keep Your Sales Team Motivated During the Holidays

5 Ways to Keep Your Team Motivated During the Holidays

  1. Motivate Your Individual Team Members

    You know full well that you have different personality types making up your sales team. It’s during a holiday period or quiet time that you have to focus on these individual personalities more than any other time during the year.

    Has your “money machine” suddenly lost all confidence in her ability to close a record number of deals consistently? How can you support her through this time?

    What about the “prima donna” whose ego is huge a the best of times? Is he suddenly in a complete panic and blaming everyone else around him for the fact nobody is returning his calls? And then there’s ‘the hopeful’ who even on December 31st will desperately hold on to the belief that the deal of the year will miraculously appear before close of business.

    It’s up to you to motivate them individually and help them maintain at least some level of ‘holiday cheer’. My final piece of advice here is to have daily catch ups with everyone at this time of the year.

  2. Motivate the Team as a Whole

    Of course you then have the responsibility to keep the team focused and up-beat as a group.

    During the ‘festive season’ it’s important to shift your focus away from specific KPIs around revenue and focus more on morale, attitude and energy. You might also want to shift the strategy away from new client wins to perhaps trying to re-connect with customers you may not have worked with for a while.

    Encourage your team to get out and about. Client Christmas parties, industry networking events, etc. Rather than sitting in the office all day literally counting the hours passing by, at least they’ll be out of the office building relationships face to face.

    Having your team meetings offsite will also help prevent the team falling into a slump as will running group coaching and training sessions. Having everyone listening in on sales calls and de-briefing together, or letting individuals sit with different teams also helps shake things up a bit.

  3. Create an Element of Healthy Competition

    Sales people are competitive by nature. Right? So why not create some additional healthy competition while it’s quiet? You can initiate competitions within individual teams (eg the SDRs, Account Executives etc), or within your entire team.

    However it’s critical that everyone knows exactly what the goals are; when does the competition kick off and when does it run through to? What’s the prize? And who’s invited to play along?

    You can run a competition for a day, a week or a month. Just make sure that if you have a prize up for grabs (whether it’s a gift voucher or cash) that you are able to hand it straight to the winner as soon as the deadline has past. Winners hate waiting for their prize.

  4. Embrace the ‘Coach / Cheerleader’ Double Act

    Throughout the year you’re probably able to separate the times that you spend in your role as coach from that of the cheerleader. But right now it’s as if you need to be wearing both hats all the time.

    You’re rolling up your sleeves and getting down and dirty with the team – leading by example; getting on the phone yourself; running spontaneous training sessions etc.

    But you’re also carefully watching over everyone – anticipating the denial and preventing the despair at this time of the year.

    You’re revving up the team, and celebrating every win – no matter how small. You’re keeping the wolves from the door and preventing the ‘Negative Nellies’ from dragging down the rest of the team (please excuse all the clichés here!).

  5. Remember That Sometimes it’s the Small Perks That Matter

    As a sales manager, I used to personally let all my team take a half day off for Christmas shopping at this time of the year. I can also remember one particular hot summer back in Australia when every Friday during that particular December I had several tubs of ice cream delivered to the office since it was honestly too hot to go outside.

    Ask your team what they’d like. It’s not always related to the dollars. A few hours out shopping or the chance to sit around as a team with a few scoops of ice cream can have a huge impact on someone’s motivation.

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Keeping Your Team Motivated FAQ

  1. What is the best way to keep your staff motivated during the holidays?

    The best ways to keep your staff motivated during the holidays is to set a regular schedule for everyone, recognize their achievements, and make it more festive. The holiday season is a busy time for everyone and it can be easy for your staff to become overwhelmed. Setting a regular schedule for your staff to follow can help them stay productive and focused on the tasks at hand.

    Recognizing their achievements and goal reaching during this time helps boost their morale and encourages them to keep going. Also decorating the office and being more festive during the holiday can help bring out their holiday cheer.

  2. What are some ways to boost morale during the holidays?

    One way to boost employee morale during the holidays is to decorate the office and encourage employees to bring in items to donate to a charity of their choosing. You can also have your managers dress up like Santa and his elves to pass out the company gifts.

  3. What are the top 5 motivators?

    The top 5 motivators at work include challenges, improvement to work-life balance, recognition, compensation, and company culture. Employees need new challenges at work to stay motivated. Without challenges they can become bored and less productive. Improving work-life balance and company culture will help employees feel happier at work making them more motivated to do the work.

    Making sure that you are giving your employees recognition of their achievements is a great morale boost and a great motivator to continue working. Without proper compensation and benefits, some employees will be less motivated to go above and beyond and won’t be as productive.

  4. What are the motivational drives for an employee?

    The three motivational drives for an employee are a need for achievement and to feel as if they have purpose. Employees want to achieve the goals that they set for themselves at work. This could be finishing a new project or getting a promotion. Employees also want to feel as if the work they are doing has a purpose and their is a reason for doing it.

Final Thoughts

Enjoyment is key in any work environment. But energy and excitement can really help a sales team stay focused … especially around the holidays.

Author

Paul Slezak

With over two decades of experience in the recruitment and human capital industry, Paul Slezak has established himself as a transformative force in the realm of leadership and career coaching, group facilitation, and talent acquisition. His unique perspective, drawn from his early career as a leader in global recruitment firms and his entrepreneurial success with his own start-up, has enabled him to make a significant impact on leaders, teams, and organizations across the world. Paul's passion for helping others achieve success and high performance is evident in his commitment to transforming leaders and their teams at local, national, and international levels. He specializes in promoting the importance of human-centered intelligence, focusing on soft skills such as authenticity, transparency, and trust to complement business-centered acumen and drive better workplace outcomes. As an impartial facilitator, Paul brings his expertise to team offsites and strategy days, ensuring alignment on goals, values, and culture while keeping participants on task. His engaging and energetic presence, coupled with his unique "entertraining" and "edutaining" delivery style, enables him to connect with audiences both large and intimate, sharing personal and professional anecdotes that inspire and energize.

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