When team performance falters, so does company performance. If the sales team isn’t hitting its quotas, the company won’t meet its revenue goals. Likewise, if the sales team is doing a fantastic job but the teams responsible for delivering the company’s products and services are struggling to deliver, customers are at risk of churning. So, how to improve team performance?
5 Effective Strategies to Improve Team Performance
Team performance is a company-wide concern. Whether you’re a performance manager responsible for getting the best out of everyone, or a department manager in charge of a smaller team, you can benefit from these five effective strategies to improve team performance.
1. Define clear goals and roles.
A team without targets is a team destined to fail. Without clear goals, the team has no idea what they’re trying to accomplish. Communicating the project’s success criteria from the project’s outset is paramount to ensuring that everyone understands management’s expectations—so they can perform their best. At the same time, defining clear roles within the project team will eliminate silos, frustration, and a lot of wasted hours. When people understand their roles and project goals, they’re in a better position to combine efforts and work together to prioritize the right tasks and focus on the things that will ensure a successful outcome. A byproduct of this type of clear and open communication is improved transparency, which is a proven tactic to increase employee engagement.
2. Become more data-driven.
If your company is like most, it’s probably collecting a lot of data. But is your company using that data to its full advantage? Data-driven organizations have a better chance of reaching their goals vs. organizations that are just playing it by ear. Visualizing shared KPIs on real-time dashboards is one of the most effective strategies to improve team performance because it gives everyone a stake in the team’s success—or failure. However, simply tracking KPIs can lead to a reactive culture. Instead, become more proactive by analyzing the data to identify why the team is underperforming in some areas and what you can do to improve it. In other words, “look for the why–don’t just react to the what.”
3. Provide coaching, training, and development opportunities
Holding 1:1 coaching sessions with your employees is one of the best ways to discover what your team is capable of. Compiling a comprehensive picture of everyone’s strengths, weaknesses, and motivation factors gives you the best vantage point from which to identify skill gaps while delegating tasks in a way that sets up your team for success. In addition to enabling everyone to play to their strengths, you’ll be able to identify opportunities to strengthen your team by offering the right training and development opportunities to each employee. Making this investment is a great way to improve employee loyalty and the likelihood that they’ll stay with the company, allowing you to cultivate your dream team.
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4. Develop a referral strategy.
Without a strong pipeline, it’s difficult to hit your sales targets. That’s where a referral strategy comes in. Referrals can be a treasure trove of warm leads. Research shows that around 47% of top-performing sales reps consistently ask for referrals, yet on the whole, 57.9% of sales reps surveyed said they ask for fewer than one referral per month. That’s a lot of untapped revenue potential. Building a referral strategy into your sales methodology is one of the easiest ways to improve sales performance with little more effort than asking a question.
5. Add gamification.
Sales gamification is a fantastic way to add excitement to the workday, keep reps engaged, and drive performance. From badges and leaderboards to traditional sales contests, incentive programs have been a mainstay of sales departments for decades—because they work. Gamification software, like Plecto, makes it easy to keep sales teams motivated, engaged, and hitting their targets.
Plecto Can Help You Increase Team Performance
Plecto makes it easy to become more data-driven and increase team motivation! Build real-time KPI dashboards in just a few clicks and keep everyone working toward the same goals.
Plecto also makes it easy to incentive performance in daily operations with gamification, leaderboards, points, badges, and more!
Start a free 14-day trial and see firsthand how to enhance team performance with Plecto’s performance-enhancing toolbox.
🚀 Want more specific information for your team?
Read other ways to improve performance:
👉 5 Proven Ways to Improve Your Team Sales Performance
👉 How to Become a World-Class Customer Service Agent
👉 How Workplace Transparency Improves Company Culture & Performance
👉 6 Game-Changing Ways to Bring Marketing & Sales Together
