How to Develop the Right Sales Incentives Program for Your Team
When you work in sales, you know that consistent, hard work from every team member is crucial. Being able to regularly convert leads into paying customers is the difference between a company that succeeds (and thrives), or one that fails (and closes).
In order to motivate your sales team to work hard, one of the best solutions is a sales incentives program. A sales incentives program rewards team members each time they make a sale, and it encourages them to focus and work hard on every single opportunity they have.
If you want to develop a sales incentives program for your sales team, the following information may help.
Focus Less on Top Performers
It may sound counterintuitive, but if you want to develop a sales incentives program that actually improves your team’s results, you want to focus less on rewarding your top performers, and more on rewarding middle-level performers. The middle 60% of your team can make a huge difference when it comes to sales numbers. So, reward the top performers appropriately, but create a sales incentive program to motivate middle-level performers to work harder–and become as successful and top-level performers. This means you should set target goals at what top-level performers are already doing, just about middle-level performers.
Build a Culture of Recognition
Too often, the heads of sales teams punish their team members for not meeting a certain quota. However, if you really want to motivate employees to become better at their jobs, you should reward them for good work, rather than the opposite. Recognizing hard work and achievement instills a sense of self-worth in employees. By fostering a culture of recognition, you create a positive atmosphere in the workplace, and you make it feel good to work hard, rather than intimidating.
Talk to Employees, or Take a Survey
Don’t just take a shot in the dark and guess what motivates your employees. Instead, talk to them about it directly, and you can ensure that your sales incentives program is one that speaks to the people it should be incentivizing. Have a meeting or focus group where everyone is allowed to share their ideas for incentives. Alternatively, send out a survey with a few reward options, and see what the results show you about what would work best. By getting feedback about the program before it even starts, you can show your employees that you care and that their opinions are valued. You can also increase the chances that the sales incentives program will work.
Set Fair Goals
Don’t meet the goals and quotas that your team has to meet to get a sales incentive impossible. Instead, make it something possible–but that would improve your team’s overall performance. Take a look at what is possible or potential for your sales teams, then set goals and quotas based on that. By setting fair quotas, you motivate team members to work hard and do well, but you don’t create an unfair situation in which they’ll never benefit (which could ultimately cause resentment or bitterness towards you, and backfire).
Be Flexible; Recalibrate Often
Once you set up a sales incentives program for your team, you may be tempted to simply walk away from it. However, you want to make sure that your program is continuously doing what it’s supposed to do, and that your employees are happy with the program you’re offering. Thus, be willing to be flexible to make changes to the sales incentives program based on feedback, and also update it regularly to make sure it’s a program that still makes sense at your organization. You want your sales incentives program to consistently meet and exceed the expectations of your employees, which means that you should be revisiting it often.
Use a Digital Platform for the Sales Incentives Program
When you create a sales incentives program, use a digital platform to keep it organized and make it easier for everyone involved with it. A digital platform offers somewhere to keep track of “points” or achievements, and it also gives employees access to rewards that they can choose from. Using a digital platform for your sales incentives program makes its execution easier and it ensures that you have the tools to change or tweak the program simply as time goes on.
Working in sales can be tough, converting every potential lead matters. That’s why a sales incentives program can be crucial for an organization. By offering sales incentives to the people that are supposed to be closing deals, you can encourage them to work hard every chance they get, then reward them with the recognition they deserve. This will keep morale high and ensure that you continue to have a team that enjoys their work and does a good job at it.
If you want to help to build a sales incentives program that works for your company, get in touch with CoreCentive. We have experience creating sales incentives that make people want to work hard and that help sales teams increase their numbers.