Earlier this month, Forbes.com published an article Top Inside Sales Challenges in 2015. In their survey of 200 companies, the third place challenge for both sales managers and inside sales representatives is motivation. The recommendation for sales managers is to focus on employee engagement, recognition, achievement and personal satisfaction. Here are three ways I’m engaging our sales team to stay on top of their game:

Recently, in my little corner of the ‘Ville, change happened. A colleague who had been by my side since my first day here moved on. She didn’t just move on, she moved out of state, actually. And, she wasn’t just a fellow employee, she was, professionally speaking, my rock; personally speaking, a cherished friend. As someone who has always been flexible with change, I stiffened with this one. It was too much to accept and I let my despondency get the better of me for a good week or more. Tears in the bathroom stall, tears walking the aisles at Target, tears as I type this now. (I guess I haven’t quite recovered yet, have I?)

I realized I needed to snap out of it, so I dug out a piece of my own advice—a post I wrote last year around this time—about dealing with change. Since it bears repeating for my own benefit, I figured it would be a worth re-sharing with our readers, too. After all, change happens every day to all of us in some form: new people come in, familiar faces leave; new technology is embraced, old ways are abandoned. With that in mind, here’s the meat of that post…

If you’re a business, you rely on the patronage of your customers to keep the doors open, and customers flock to businesses where they have a positive experience. Businesses spend millions of dollars annually on their décor, marketing, product, and packaging to earn a returning customer. However, one of the best business practices to earn a loyal customer has nothing to do with how a storefront appears or what a company sells. It’s how well a customer is treated, and your employees’ job satisfaction has a direct impact on it...

Here at Baudville, we love recognition. Not only recognition, but peer-to-peer recognition has a special place in our hearts, too. (That goes without saying... but I'll say it anyways!) This month's peer-to-peer spotlight comes from Dan Rogers, one of the head honchos of our sister company, IDville, who decided to recognize our internal newsletter team with a thoughtful e-mail:

In the beginning of summer I always have the best intentions of kick starting a new wellness plan... Then life gets busy and sometime around now-ish, all of my wellness hopes and dreams come crashing down. So, lately I have been trying to jump back on the bandwagon in a very simple way; by infusing my water with fruit!