It’s The Little Things That Make Inside Sales Teams Perform Better
Posted by
Chris Lang on Thu, Oct 28, 2023 @ 03:56 PM
Like having your operations director dress up as a figure skater....
We don’t play around on Halloween. Store bought costumes and cliché ideas are frowned upon at AG Salesworks. Today is our Halloween party and the office is buzzing. One of our operations directors is dressed as a male figure skater. He literally conducted meetings with his employees while in roller blades, stretch pants and what appears to be a woman’s blouse from 1982. Right now the whole company (minus one sales guy that got stuck blogging) is in the cafeteria carving pumpkins, eating food, listening to music and having a beer. How does a figure skating director increase sales for the outside reps? Why do Michele’s chocolate chip pumpkin cookies increase the call volume inside reps make? Can something as simple as a couple hours off for a party drive your numbers up? Absolutely!
The obvious reason these things have a positive effect is because they make employees feel happy. Almost every study you look at shows that happy employees are productive employees. This isn’t to say that management should be hopping around every day in costumes trying to turn frowns upside down, but give your team some events to look forward to. They don’t have to be extravagant. Just give them something to break the monotony of constantly making calls.
In addition to making employees happy, you learn a lot about your employees when you throw in spiffs and fun events. This in turn gives you a personal connection with your employees and lets them know that they aren’t simply a number. How would I know that Mike R. was an accomplished NHL 98 player if the Sega Genesis tournament never happened? Who would have thought Erin K. had the voice that she has if we didn’t ask her to help out with some YouTube videos? Most importantly, how would the AG world have discovered Michelle’s pumpkin cookies without a Halloween party!
All these ideas of love and happiness in the work force are nice, but there are some real numbers driven facts that support keeping employees happy. For example, having small events like this increase your retention rates. As we all know, burnout is extremely high in the world of inside sales and companies spend countless dollars and use a lot of valuable time hiring and training new inside reps. I believe the average stint for an inside rep is about 1.5 - 2 years. If you factor in the 2 months it takes to train them and then the 3 months it takes them to build a pipeline, you are looking at about 1 – 1.3 years of production before you have to look for someone new. Then when the inside rep leaves, you have to spend time and money to find a new one and go through the whole process again with no guarantee that the rep will be any good. The solution: keep your good inside reps around longer. A lot of people say that increased compensation is the best way of achieving this I would argue that employee happiness is just as important.
In the world of inside sales we train our reps to seek happiness through the deals they help close. In essence, we tell them to make their own happiness through their work. While I think this is a valid technique, I also think that spreading some joy and providing an excellent work environment is just as important as anything else you can do for your reps. Try this and I am confident your numbers will increase. I’m off to join the party. I’m dressed as a Mexican Wrestler and hoping to win first prize.