Influencing motivation of salespeople : Factors managers should use to motivate salespeople in commissioning company

Abstract

This thesis was commissioned by Academic Work Oy. The company is a leading recruitment company for young professionals in Finland. The company has grown strongly for many years and through this assignment they wanted to assess the motivation and thoughts of their salespeople about current processes. In addition, the commissioning company wanted to find out how sales managers can motivate their sellers. In this thesis the theory part focuses on two theories, one theory discussed in the study is motivation in general and its importance in sales. The second theory deals with sales management. The sales management part focuses more on how managers can improve salesperson motivation through rewards, different pay models, training, sales competitions, and the right kind of sales goals. The study was conducted using a quantitative survey in which 28 Academic Work’s sales employees out of 35 participated. The purpose of the survey was to find out what influences the motivation of salespeople, and based on this, make a proposal for improvement to the commission company. Academic Work’s sales training is at a good level and the salary model is motivating for salespeople. Based on the survey, what should be improved is that sales managers need to encourage more of their salespeople to sell, e.g. through organizing a variety of individual competitions. Although the salary model was considered good, introducing external rewards to raise performance levels could generate higher motivation and results. In addition to these, Academic Work needs to set individual sales goals that are realistic and fairly easily achievable through working hard.