Does Your Sales Team Celebrate the Small Wins?

Does your sales team celebrate the small wins? You know the ones I’m talking about: a sales rep finally schedules a discovery meeting at a targeted account after months of prospecting, a new hire gets that first customer win or your engineering team pushes out a new release ahead of time. 

The “small” wins are actually milestones.

If you don’t celebrate, or at least acknowledge small victories, you’re missing out on key opportunities for recognition. Plus, those individual or team achievements mean something to your business’ overall success. That’s why you should think of recognizing them as being part of your company culture.

Don’t get me wrong; I get fired up about the large wins – like replacing your rival competitor at a strategic account, or being recognized by media for being thought leaders in your industry. However, the small victories are what it takes to drive success. It’s those quick contract wins, your first hundred online reviews or that new fast growth customer that help your company grow, year in and year out.

The celebrations can be just as small.

At LevelEleven, we love playing “small ball” and celebrating the assists, singles and doubles. To give you an idea of what our culture is like, it’s not uncommon for our team to recognize each other with a few dozen “Timbits” from Tim Hortons following a rocking Power Hour or prospecting day. We also send out auto-generated emails through Salesforce following a “closed-won” opportunity. The email subject line is “Score – New Deal won at XYZ company for __ users.” The recognition that follows is what makes it great. Words of acknowledgement from peers, management and a few attached GIFs (see example below) get everyone pumped up about the win.

These Timbits and emails contribute to recognizing the activities that will ensure our success as a company. The Power Hours and deals closed lead us to our sales numbers. At the end of the day, they all add up to moving LevelEleven forward.

When it comes down to it, people want to be recognized for their efforts. Celebrating small victories does just that. Recognize them — both the small victories and those responsible — inside your company and with your customers, and it will pay huge dividends to your entire team’s success.