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:

Weddings, wedding, weddings! There must be love potion in the water at the ‘Ville, as it seems everyone is tying the knot lately. Last month, Alan was getting ready for his wedding, and just recently Lisa recited her vows. In the last couple of months, members of our sales suite and IDville did, too.

Lisa, who is our Client Services Manager for hi5, happens to sit right near me, so I got to hear all the updates about her nuptials—and how the Imagine the Possibilities™ card she got for her Baudville anniversary was a part of it all! Here’s her story:

Over the past several months, I’ve been featuring Baudville employees’ stories on how they’ve celebrated their work anniversaries with Imagine the Possibilities™ Cards. I had been stalking my coworker, Alan, because I knew he had something interesting planned for his card. He approached me a few weeks ago to tell me to stop following him that he finally made his purchase. Here’s his story:

Did you know that we have an entire service awards program dedicated to recognition year round? I asked one of our hi5 experts to tell us more about this great recognition solution. Here's what I found!

At the start of 2015, I welcomed my six-year anniversary, which, as I mentioned in a previous post, was a pretty big deal for me. In addition to it being a record as far as job longevity goes, I also got a really sweet anniversary gift.