How to Use Creative Sales Incentive Programs to Increase Sales

Maintain Your Sales Force’s Happiness and Motivation

Sales incentives have a significant impact on overall morale and motivation. When every day is the same and you’ve spent years trying to sell a product, it’s good to have a change of pace and something new to look forward to. Your company relies on salespeople, so keep them happy and motivated, and pay attention to what their actions are telling you. If they don’t seem to care about a certain incentive and no one is interested in it, inquire as to why. Either the incentive isn’t appealing or the competition is too severe.

Maintain Simplicity

Keep it simple. The incentive rewards scheme should be straightforward. The most frustrating thing for an employee is when they can’t understand the program and have no idea how they’re doing. Use a cheap essay writing service and create a simple goal/reward chart and ensure that employees may check in on their progress at least once a week.

Don’t scrimp on the spoils. If you want amazing results from your employees, you have entire power over that, and it begins with your hard effort in choosing a truly GREAT incentive. Don’t take the easy route and go buy an iPod to give away. Determine what your employees actually value and desire/need.

Include secondary long-term objectives. Along with a sales objective, set a secondary aim that will serve as a foundation for future sales. For example, make staff compete not only for sales but also for lead generation. You’ll gain from this contest for a long time rather than just having sales increase for a short time.

Make sure you have a variety of reward tiers. Everyone will try to reach at least one fairly low but highly attainable objective if you set one. Even the least driven employees will want to get their hands on that low-hanging carrot. It should still be something they have to go out of their way for, but not something that requires superhuman success. Who knows, maybe a little success will motivate them to push even harder to achieve the next goal.

Keep staff informed about their progress. For example, every Friday during the program, you could make a big deal about how things are doing and demonstrate what has been working for the best employees.

Make a big deal out of it. The contest announcement should be a big thing. Perhaps offer everyone pizza and announce the contest around lunch (if you have a small office of course). Alternatively, make a few announcements that a special contest will be announced on Monday. Continue to make a huge fuss about it the entire time, and especially about the winners. 

Ask questions

Ask your staff what they think they would value the most as an incentive! The most crucial element is that people regard the incentive as something they truly desire. In these difficult economic times, you may discover that your staff prefers cash or practical prizes. You don’t need to buy college papers to understand the whole problem. Even if you own a high-end business where employees are paid well and are not in need, you might be astonished to learn that they are experiencing difficulties these days. Even if it’s not cash, if it’s close to practical, that’s also nice. It also helps to include something that their entire family would like. Perhaps you provide something that everyone requires, but it is still a luxury item that could be a significant upgrade for them.

Be inventive. You want to provide something truly unique. It goes a long way toward demonstrating that you’ve worked as hard as you’re asking them to work to make the contest a success. It should be something people can’t believe you’re offering. Someone on your team should try to obtain prizes that are unachievable. If a popular concert is coming to town, contact the star’s management (normally an email address can be found online) and ask if there will be a meet and greet and if one of your employees may go. Many celebrities have a little meet & greet before or after the concert.

You can view the original article HERE.