There are many contributing factors as to why salespeople within SaaS companies may find themselves hitting a barrier in terms of motivation and drive.
Working in sales within any industry can be challenging - which for many, is a motivator in itself - but with the increasing number of scaling SaaS companies in the market, competition is high for GTM teams.
Along with the growing number of competitors, business leaders also need to take inflation, the cost of living crisis and Brexit into consideration. With numerous reasons why your GTM team members might be experiencing seller drag, team leaders and managers need to combat any problems proactively to ensure business success isn’t negatively affected.
WHAT IS SELLER DRAG?
Seller drag is, ultimately, when sales employees are experiencing demotivation at work. According to Gartner, it manifests as “the tendency to procrastinate, feel bored, avoid work, struggle with focus and go through the motions”.
Members of your GTM team experiencing seller drag are more likely to “achieve lower quota attainment, have higher burnout, and are more likely to express intent to leave and have shorter expected tenures than those who don’t”.
The four main causes of seller drag are:
- Lack of development opportunities
- Feeling like a cog in a machine
- Vague, unactionable manager feedback
- Administrative burden
SaaS business leaders being aware of the main reasons for their employees experiencing drag will enable them to avoid it altogether, by planning ahead to ensure their people feel valued, and thus, more motivated.
HOW TO AVOID SELLER DRAG AND MOTIVATE YOUR GTM TEAM
First of all, let’s look at the lack of development opportunities that could potentially be demotivating your salespeople.
For scaling SaaS companies, there is likely to be a business growth plan already in place, and with that will come an idea of the range of roles available at all levels.
An estimated number of salespeople will require enough team leaders, managers and senior management to service the sales progress of your software, which also provides your GTM team with possible progression opportunities.
Ensure that a set career development plan is in place for all employees, with specific targets to achieve in order to receive a promotion. If your workers constantly have goals in place to achieve more and progress in their careers, this will hopefully help with avoiding seller drag.
In relation to this, feeling like a cog in a machine can be avoided by ensuring all employees feel valued within your company. If they feel replaceable and aren’t receiving the rewards or recognition deserved for their hard work, they will likely look for a sales role elsewhere, where they will be recognised for the part they play within your organisation.
In terms of vague, unactionable manager feedback, this often comes down to the training your managers are receiving.
If a manager is having regular one-to-one meetings with each member of their GTM team, every employee should know specifically how their performance is being monitored and what they need to do to improve.
If they’re unsure exactly what is required for them to improve their sales figures and exceed their targets, they will be unable to progress which will lead to seller drag, and eventual burnout.
Lastly, if administrative burden is what is impacting your GTM team’s motivation to perform to the best of their ability, this can be eradicated with either a) additional employees, specifically responsible for administrative tasks, or b) a tech platform that will enable your salespeople to minimise their admin tasks.
A large part of sales enablement for your GTM team is ensuring that all tech platforms are easy to use and make the sales process more efficient and streamlined.
Therefore, if your employees are spending too much time on admin which is impacting their sales productivity, this can easily be addressed by reviewing the step-by-step process your GTM team goes through on a daily basis. Ask for feedback from your team members, and assess where processes can be improved, and time saved.
BUILD AN ELITE GTM TEAM FOR YOUR SAAS COMPANY
Here at Strive, we source top tier sales talent for hyper-growth tech companies. To learn more about how we can help your business scale, contact our team on 0203 983 0770 or email hello@scalewithstrive.com.
