Sales manager is an important position in a company. He does not only focus in sales alone, yet he needs to set sales objectives, forecasting, budgeting, organizing and salesforce's recruitment. In order salesforce to achieve it objective, sales manager needs to create a positive environment for his salesforce. According to Barker (2001), salesperson's behavior is influenced by three groups of antecedents - activities of sales manager, characteristics of salesperson and an appropriate sales organization's design. One of the important functions of sales manager is motivating salesforce towards their job performance, productivity, job satisfaction and employees extension.
Motivation is complex because it varies among people. People are motivated towards something that they can relate to and something that they can believe in. Motivational methods will work if the arrangement and values are right in combination. Basically, sales manager needs to motivate salesforce in order them to focus in the sales result. Hence, there is no one that can actually ?do' a result but can only through carry out more productive and efficient task, having a positive and creative attitude and directed on higher-yield strategic opportunities. Therefore, it is important to understand salesforce's attitude and behavior before giving motivation.
There are two models that can be used to determined and motivates salesforce. It is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow, 1970) and Herzberg Motivation- Hygiene Theory (Herzberg, 1959).
Hierarchy of Needs
According to Maslow (1970), an individual [salesforce] is ready to act upon the growth needs when the deficiency needs are met. Maslow's hierarchy can be used to describe salesforce needs at different levels (Norwood, 1999).