How Is Your Sales Team Celebrating Success?

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]By Mark Landiak

August 12, 2015 – It’s mere moments before your weekly sales meeting. The typical small talk and chatter fills the air as your team starts filing into the room from the sales floor. Everyone seems upbeat and lively, and with good reason. Last week was a great week. Two of your wireless sales reps set new highs for activations, your store accessory sales beat their forecasts, and your rookie sales rep (who you were admittedly a little worried about at this time a month ago) is forming some good habits and showing some real improvement. There’s a wildly contagious positive vibe running through your team right now. Things are looking up, and everyone can sense it.

As a wireless sales manager, how you celebrate success is pivotal to creating a winning culture. For those who are accustomed to success, winning can (and often does) feel habitual. When success and winning becomes consistent, it starts to become the expectation. Success can actually become challenging though when managing those who are not familiar with it. For those experiencing success for the first time, their first concern will be learning to “ride the wave.” They want to understand how to maintain that success or (depending on their frame) avoid doing anything to mess it up. They want to cultivate successful habits. Managing your wireless sales team through the highs is just as important as managing them through the lows.

Here are some useful tips for managing your team and celebrating success:

Story Sharing. The first lesson in celebrating success is understanding that success is shared. Individual successes go a long way, but your culture champions winning as a team. This value should permeate your wireless sales meeting. For each individual success, have your wireless sales team show that player some kind of gratitude and congratulations. Show them what that success means in the bigger picture to the team’s goals. A round of applause or a resounding “huzzah!” will do just fine. It’s important to use each individual’s perspective and success to lift each other up and sustain it.
Bonus/Rewards. Success should be rewarded, and there’s nothing wrong with tying that proverbial carrot to the end of the string. Part of celebrating success is channeling it in a way that encourages your players to bring out the best in each other. Small competitions can be healthy when they keep the team focused on achieving larger, team goals. As a wireless sales manager, offer up a free accessory or gift card as incentive for your players to push themselves and each other.
Team Meal. Who doesn’t love free food? OK, It might not be free for your store. But a team meal can give your team players the chance to bond over the dinner table. It’s another way to reward your team while at the same time contributing to an atmosphere of shared success.
Team Excursion. In much the same way as a meal might contribute to bonding, shared activities like mini-golf, canoeing, paintball, trivia night, and more can create strong team bonds through shared experience and activity. Furthermore, activities like these can themselves reinforce the sense of dedication and togetherness that are vital to operating as a successful team.

As I say in B eat Your Best™ , “Everyone wins when your players are hooked on winning, when they see themselves as a special part of a cohesive whole.” The best way to celebrate success is to celebrate collectively. Team players are not resentful or jealous when any top player’s success saturates everyone’s mood. One individual’s success is everyone’s success. This is especially important in building a winning sales culture and for those individual players new to a successful environment. As a member of a winning wireless sales team, they can learn how to celebrate success through celebrating the success of their teammates. In turn, those teammates will celebrate the success that those individuals go on to achieve. Winning breeds winning when it is shared. Be sure to share in your success when you celebrate it with your wireless sales team![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]