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Salesforce.com has one of the strongest and best-known sales cultures in the world. Sales directors looking to improve the overall performance of their team and create a sustainable change may want to look at how to create a similar culture in their own organisations. Here are 5 tips from Salesforce themselves as to how you might do this:

MAKE WORK MEANINGFUL

Sales employees are likely to get demotivated if they don’t see the value in what they do. They need to see the products or services they sell in the context of their customers and prospects businesses and see the impact that has too. It should be no surprise that if people find their work meaningful it’s easier to believe in and promote that work.

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PROMOTE WORKFORCE WELLBEING

The days of high-stress and high-pressure sales departments should be behind us. A little pressure is fine, we all need to make targets, but too much leads to burnout. If you build your team with a focus on their wellbeing, they’ll go the extra mile for you and they’ll be happy to do it. It’s time to end the “you’re only as good as your last sale” stuff and focus on “you’re awesome and you can do it whenever you want to” instead.

BUILD AN OPTIMISTIC WORKPLACE

This doesn’t mean take an unrealistic view through a rose colored lens; it means promote and reward activity which is positive and ethical and done well. It also means step back from punishing people when things go wrong and treat those events as learning opportunities instead.

PLAY TO PEOPLE’S STRENGTHS

It sounds obvious but from direct observation on the sales floor, it often doesn’t seem to be there in practice, you want to play to people’s strengths. Don’t force everyone to do everything but instead build the team so that each person gets to shine in their areas of strength and is backstopped for their areas of weakness.

KNOW YOUR TEAM

You don’t need to become everybody’s best friend to lead a department of sales people but you should know what matters to each person, what motivates them and why they show up for work every day. If you don’t understand what makes the team tick; you can’t possibly try and make the careful adjustments you need to get the job done better each and every time.