Sales Incentive Programs

Why is it that certain sales incentive programs are worth their weight in gold while others manage to fail spectacularly? One reason is that all too frequently not enough thought goes into planning sales campaigns. Managers trot out a cash prize at the last minute after months and months of deliberating about how best to motivate their workers, only by then it's too late.

The problem is that cash isn't necessarily the spark that many reps need to get moving. One reason is that commission-based reps, who account for the majority of salespeople, at least in direct sales, are already motivated by money. Lots of sales reps don't even draw salaries, particularly in fields such as real estate where commissions are lucrative enough to supplant weekly paychecks. So what exactly does it take to motivate sales staffs like these?

Put Their Names in Lights

One surefire way to stoke your office's collective interest is to attach some kind of recognition to high achievement. Winning praise or high distinction at a national sales conference may prove more enticing for some employees, which makes sense when you deconstruct the psychology behind why people enter the sales field in the first place. The majority of salespeople are natural performers who are drawn to the stage and derive a real thrill from closing the deal. In some respects, their capacity to do so stands in as a surrogate for their self worth.

Whether this is a "good" or "bad" thing is entirely inconsequential to sales managers. After all, it's not their job to play armchair psychologist but to make money for their company. Knowing that attention-seeking personalities will rise to the occasion when public commendation is on the line is the first step in squeezing the best efforts from some (but not all) sellers and is the basis for some of the most successful incentive programs.