The Trophy Generation

The Trophy Generation: Managing sales teams when everyone wants to be a winner

James Pember CEO and co-founder

What is The Trophy Generation?Born between 1980 and 2001, often referred to as Millennials.Nice try, way to go, youll get it next time style of parental encouragement.Participation Trophies for showing up.

Is Trophy parenting a bad thing?

On the other hand..One could argue that constant positive reinforcement and encouragement has led to a generation that is:

Risk-takingFree-thinkingAmbitiousConfident

Why does The Trophy Generation impact me and my sales management initiatives?

Millennials are taking over the workforce

When it comes to motivation, what worked before wont work now This new breed of sales rep requires a completely different mindset when it comes to motivating and managing their performance.

What motivates these Millennials then?Below are the 3 motivators that sales leaders need to tap into in order to get epic sales success out of their younger colleagues

1. Praise and Recognition2. Constant (and I mean constant) and Continuous Feedback3. Milestones, Achievements and Incremental Progress

Praise and Recognition"The millennials were raised with so much affirmation and positive reinforcement that they come into the workplace needy for more - Subha Barry - Merrill Lynch

If you want to motivate your millennial sales staff into increased performance - dont be scared to push the praise button a little more often.

Constant and Continuous FeedbackMillennials crave constant feedback. Annual performance reviews dont work. Review progress as often as possible.

Milestones, Achievements and ProgressAnother hangover effect from years of playing video games is the desire to pass milestones, tick off achievements and make incremental progress.This is particularly relevant for sales. Make sure you break down big ambitious goals into more easily digestible milestones. Make sure you track and report activity levels too, because we all know - activity levels are the engine room for successful salespeople.

SummaryThe new breed of salespeople are different, and this difference must be accepted in order to drive high performing sales organizations in 2016.Remember, what worked before wont necessarily work now. If youre sales culture isnt built upon continuous feedback, recognition and praise and incremental progress - you risk being left behind.

Drive sales performance with SpartaSparta is a sales performance software platform, that makes it easy to drive competitions, coaching and goal-setting.Track, measure and improve. Perfect for millennial sales teams. Learn more at www.spartasales.com

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