How to Use Dashboards to Motivate Your Team



Managing and motivating your sales team is one of the biggest benefits of having a sales dashboard.

But you’re probably asking; “how can I use this data to effectively guide my team to a higher level of performance?”

Here, I’ll outline 5 ways you can use your dashboards to help your reps get better results and progress their careers.

1. Celebrate The Metrics

We’ve talked a lot about using dashboards to identify leaky holes in sales processes.

But what about the things that are going well?

Rahul Alim from Custom Creatives says numbers should do the talking:

“I like to show my team how close or far we are from weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals. If we are behind, we do a big push. If we are ahead, we want to crush it and get way far ahead. The motivation lies in the outcome of what we do.”

Check the overall performance of your teams. Look for things to celebrate, such as:

Sales activities that exceeded quota

Increase in results compared to previous period (week, month etc.)

Individual team members who have improved in performance

This insight is all available within your performance dashboards. Look for areas that can be celebrated, both for individuals and as a team.

2. Get a Contest Started

Earlier, I shared how gamification can create a competitive spirit among sales teams.

Take this one step further and create incentivized sales competitions.

Here are a few creative ideas to get you started:

The Pitch-Factor : Just like X-Factor, but for sales pitches. Each rep anonymously submits their sales pitches and the rest of the team votes which is the best. You can also do this with cold email and cold calling scripts.





: Just like X-Factor, but for sales pitches. Each rep anonymously submits their sales pitches and the rest of the team votes which is the best. You can also do this with cold email and cold calling scripts. Snooze Buttons : Let reps win a late start/early finish during the working day. Reward this to the first rep who hits quota first. Early weekend on a Friday afternoon, anyone?





: Let reps win a late start/early finish during the working day. Reward this to the first rep who hits quota first. Early weekend on a Friday afternoon, anyone? Performance Alliances: Team-up your high performers with low performers and get them to work together. Encourage them to share new ideas. The duo with the most new sales at the end of the contest period wins.

Come up with your own ideas by tapping into psychological triggers. Try and create competitive scenarios that encourage teamwork, not cutthroat backstabbing.

3. Use Data to Set New Paths

Not all goals should be set in stone.

Sure, quota is there for a reason. But challenges will always come up in different shapes and sizes.

Dashboards can indicate points of friction, leaky holes in the pipeline and areas that need improvement.

When these problems arise, it’s important to address them.

Why?

Because fixing them will help you reach quota.

Look at it this way: your revenue target is the goal, sales activities are the path and those challenges are the obstacle.

For example, response rates have started significantly dropping from your sales emails. Here’s how I would tackle this challenge:

Look at historical data during the same time period, this may be a seasonal reaction.



Re-allocate time into other levers, such as follow-ups, cold calls and any other sales channels you follow.



Measure the same outcomes and compare them to the previous period.

Look at these as experiments. What will happen to outcome x if we do activity a instead of activity b? Apply any successful experiments to your future processes.

4. Use Data to Fuel Transparency

It’s important to get your sales reps on board with every decision you make. Sure, you can explain your reasoning to make a case, and that may work…

...but nothing beats backing it up with data.

As Ryan Harwood, CEO of PureWow, says:

“Not everyone will always agree with you, but they’re much more likely to respect the decision if they understand the thought process behind it.”

Back your decisions up with data and demonstrate that your intentions are in the right place. This shows you’re using objective facts to drive your decision making, not gut feeling or a sense of entitlement.

5. Fuel Autonomy with High-Level Numbers

This tip is counter-intuitive to the ‘share only what is necessary’ rule.

But there are benefits in sharing your high-level “management” numbers with your reps.

Some sales reps are high performers because they’re always looking to improve. This often leads to experimentation and trying out new things

By sharing high-level metrics, they can see things from a 360 perspective. Allow them to use these numbers to come up with ideas on how they can make their own jobs easier and more effective.

Of course, this requires some humility. Some sales managers may scoff at the idea of letting reps “tell them how to do their job…”

Leave your ego at the door and focus on serving your reps. Let them make a dent in the organization and further their career. That’s what great leaders do.

Over to you...

You now have a complete toolkit to create sales dashboards that motivate your team and get results.

When you’re done following this process, you should have clear processes in place that help you refine your activities and generate better results.

Now, I’d love to hear from you. How are you currently measuring team performance? How do you plan on using what you’ve learned here today? Share your thoughts in the comments below.If you haven’t already, be sure to download and use Pipedrive’s free Excel sales dashboard.



