Sales is a demanding line of work. And all that pressure of getting more sales and making more money can lead to high levels of stress–stress that takes a toll on productivity, as well as physical and emotional well-being.
Workplace stress affects both employees and employers. According to recent research, 40 percent of employees reported their jobs being very or extremely stressful, while 25 percent said their job is the biggest stressor in their life. Other research showed employers spend approximately $225 billion each year for mental health care and absenteeism due to workplace stress.
If you want your sales team to perform their best and your business to continue making money, you have to reduce the amount of stress in your sales organization. Here are five ways to better manage stress.
1. Promote a healthy work-life balance.
Overworked and overwhelmed salespeople tend to overeat, sleep less and not spend enough time exercising and doing things that make them happy, which then leads to major health problems, such as hypertension, cardiovascular disease and other fatal conditions. You can literally save lives and cut back on health costs by promoting a healthy work-life balance.
Adam Schanz, CEO of Alder, made this a goal of his and added an on-site Crossfit gym for his employees to use.
“It really builds camaraderie among the employees, and Crossfit has helped us build our culture here at Alder,” Schanz said. “Our culture is what attracts hundreds of men and women to Alder and keeps them here long term.”
Besides adding an on-site gym, you can also pay for local gym memberships, provide healthier lunch and snack options, give your employees flexibility to work from home, educate employees on what a healthy work-life balance is and perhaps most important of all is to ask your sales reps what they need to improve their balance.
2. Compensate employees fairly.
Residual income is key to acquiring salespeople. Especially when these sales reps are the main source of income for their families, if they’re having a slow month or several in a row, it’s stressful not knowing whether you’re going to have enough money to support your family.
For other positions, fairly compensating employees is easy. You pay them a salary and typically some additional benefits. But it gets trickier with salespeople because there are different compensation plans you could use. The most common is basing their compensation on their sales numbers, while others just pay a straight salary or a base salary plus commission. One company found the best way to motivate their reps while boosting their revenue was basing sales compensation on effort and behavior, not just a reps sales numbers.
One business school professor who studied how companies should pay salespeople believes the best way to fairly compensate salespeople is by tailoring a compensation system to each individual sales rep. This may or may not work for your organization, but just remember to pay your employees fairly and in a way that motivates them and helps your organization meet its sales goals.
3. Adhere closely to a code of ethics that employees will support.
Ethical salespeople, not the sweet talkers who get people to spend tons of money on stuff they don’t need, are able to build and maintain trust with customers and potential customers. To get your sales reps doing the latter, you need to implement a code of ethics that not only reflects your core values, but that your employees will back 100 percent.
Half of your salesforce might be stressing because the other half is opening new accounts and making more money, but doing it in unethical ways. You can fix that by defining acceptable sales behaviors, outlining suitable sales tactics, establishing a framework for job responsibilities and promoting healthy workplace compensation in your code of ethics.
And if you want your employees to support it, let them help write it.
4. Allow ample opportunities for diversion at work.
It’s true that some people don’t like change. But when changes are for the better, and people can see how they’re going to benefit them, then they’re more likely to jump on board.
Creating chances for diversion at work doesn’t have to mean huge changes, though. It can be minor or a mix of minor and major changes, like adjusting sales processes based on changing customer needs, testing out a new CRM because half your sales team is unhappy with your current one, letting a sales team test waters with a new industry, etc.
Change may seem scary to some, but you need to embrace change. Organizational changes can lead to cuts in business costs, improved sales processes and keeping your competitive edge. Reduce employee stress from diversion by clearly showing the benefits of change and letting employees help decides what, where and when to change.
5. Apply the golden rule.
Your parents taught this to you when you were young and it still applies today–treat others the way you want to be treated. Applying the golden rule is especially important for management to follow.
If you want productive employees who are happy and motivated instead of stressed, then treat them like the adults they are; better yet, treat employees like your best customers. Doing so will give you better insight, keep you from taking your most valuable resource for granted and help your organization grow, while at the same time making your employees feel appreciated, want to be invested in management and the company and stay loyal to you even when times get tough.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.