There are three contemporary theories of motivation to motivate Salesforce than includes content theories, process theories, and reinforcement-oriented theories.
Content theories highlights the need of employees to be rewarded and recognized to be motivated. It helps in planning and designing compensation plans and rewards. This includes from person basic needs to self-esteem.
Process theories highlights on the kind of goals and rewards to match employees thought process and to identify actions to work towards the fulfillment of those needs. It talks about the equity, and benchmarking with other salespeople.
Reinforcement-oriented theories highlights the modification of organizational behavior with the principle and techniques which strengthen the learning, and maintain or eliminate behaviors through a systematic process. The systematic process includes rewarding and punishment according to the performance of the employees.
So using these contemporary theories, a sales manager can motivate for high performance where the process and needs changes according to the time. The motivation should be divided into financial incentives and non-financial incentives which are motivator and hygiene factors in absence of which salespeople fails to perform. Using the above theories, compensation and reward plans should be designed so that both the factors effecting performance of the sales force can be achieved where they want non-financial incentives once the financial incentives are fulfilled.