Every demotivated student has asked this question at least once: “Why do we have to learn this?” It is a question that arises when students feel disconnected from their work. They know they have to do something, but they don’t know why it matters. A satisfactory answer can turn a checked-out student into a motivated performer.

An answer not likely to spur a student to do their best is “because you need a good grade in this class.” That is an extrinsic motivation. A grade is an external reward, not an internal motivator. A better answer would connect the boring subject or topic to something the student is interested in and relate it to the bigger picture, such as developing the problem-solving skills or a perspective that is useful to the things they are interested in. That answer creates intrinsic motivation. The student can see how their work fits into their lives, and they understand why the work is necessary.

Motivation is no different for adults at work. If you don’t feel like your work matters, it’s hard to give your best. For sales employees, motivation is often provided in the form of a commission. We’re all working for a paycheck, sure, but if the work is unsatisfying enough, many will be willing to go work at a more meaningful job for less pay. It takes more than a monetary reward to create true, intrinsic motivation.

Motivating employees is cultural and strategic. It comes down to making sure each employee understands what they’re doing and why. When you have a clear strategy, a clear path to enacting that strategy, a set of goals you want to reach, and ways to measure progress, you set the stage for highly motivated employees to do their best.

Where Does a Lack of Motivation Come From?

One of the biggest reasons any team loses motivation is lack of purpose. Employees lose sight of what they’re doing and why. They can’t see why their efforts matter because they are disconnected from the big picture. Days become a succession of just showing up and doing the bare minimum.

While this is often framed as a moral failing or simple laziness, the fact is that modern work is alienating by nature. There are many layers between the production of a product and the end user, and most of us work somewhere in the middle, not knowing exactly how a product was made and not knowing exactly who the customer is. The decisions made by a business, even a small one, can seem opaque to a worker who is focused only on their own work.

Sales teams are close to the customer, so they should be intimately acquainted with the customer’s needs and how your products meet those needs. When sales teams feel demotivated, it’s often because they can’t see how their sales efforts help a business achieve its goals. They might not articulate it this way, but when sales is not aligned with strategy, salespeople will have a harder time making sales. In the absence of strategy, they will default to the tactics they are familiar with, and those tactics might serve neither the customer nor the business. The result is lower sales, greater frustration, and eventual demotivation.

Strategic Alignment

Strategic alignment is important for every department, though a lack of alignment affects different departments differently. For sales, the problems that arise from a lack of alignment are the ones outlined above: sales tactics not fit for the business’s goals and sales reps unable to see the big picture. To bring teams into alignment, you need open communication about your strategy, your goals, how those goals will be pursued, and how success will be measured. When teams are in alignment, it becomes easier to encourage the kind of cross-functional collaboration that makes it easy for employees to understand what success looks like and to see how everybody’s efforts contribute to success.

Account-Based Marketing

ABM is a B2B sales philosophy designed to align sales and marketing through technology like a customer relationship management system (CRM). For companies where annual contract value is high but the number of sales opportunities is low, ABM is a great way to accomplish the kind of strategic alignment that motivates sales teams. The organization, communication, and analysis a CRM provides allow everyone to see the big picture and reduce the frustration and demotivation that stems from a lack of clear goals and communication. For more on executing an ABM strategy, check out this article.

Choosing the Right KPIs

After articulating a clear vision to your team, you need a way to measure success. The key to using key performance indicators is choosing the right ones. You’ll get the kind of performance you measure for. Choosing the right KPIs will make it clear to employees what they’re trying to achieve. It will also make clear what kind of incentives to offer. Whether it’s customer lifetime value, conversion rate, number of new sales qualified leads, or annual contract value, when sales reps know what they’re working toward, they feel more competent and become more motivated.

Recognize Best Efforts

Even intrinsically motivated employees like to be recognized for their efforts. When you set clear goals and use KPIs to measure success, recognizing success becomes easier. It also becomes fairer. If I see a colleague receiving a reward for something I didn’t even know I was supposed to be doing, I can become demotivated. Having everyone working toward the same goals reduces this danger. Measuring success makes it easy to fairly recognize success.

Make Continuous Learning Cultural

True motivation comes from knowing that your efforts make a difference. It’s all part of creating a culture of continuous learning and development. In such a culture, your employees are empowered to learn independently and keep their knowledge up-to-date because the reasons and rewards for doing so are clear. As you build this culture, recognize and celebrate all the small wins along the way to foster the positive atmosphere that further motivates your team to do their best and always keep growing.