Creating the Right Sales Incentive agenda For Your Employees
If you carry on a sales force you know that it's tough to keep things fresh and motivating. The last thing you want in your sales staff to get really 'ho hum' about your product line and about manufacture big sales.
Every sales staff is at some point offered a contest to win an iPod or a second rate Tv. It's lame and even more lame if you're gift an iPod shuffle. No one needs an iPod, everybody who wants one already has one. You have to be more creative than that. If you want your employees to work hard to make the goals you're throwing out there, then you have to work hard to make those incentives worth while.
1. Ask your worker what they want and what would motivate them. In these tough economic times it might be cash or something ultra practical like grocery store certificates or gas cards. You don't know until you ask. Give them a eye of what the top three prizes should be. Make them vary widely, like something practical, something in in the middle of like a high end Tv and something like a fancy vacation.
2. Keep the contest uncomplicated in terms of what you're asking of them. Make the goal high but the conception simple. You don't want the contest to have a complex method that your employees have decipher. They'll lose interest.
3. Make the whole thing a big deal and keep them up to date on how they're doing. You should have at least weekly updates about which employees are the front runners. It'll motivate them to want to beat the others.
4. Don't have the contest run too long, it'll bore them and they'll all the time think they can start 'later'. Try to keep a contest to 6 or 8 weeks depending on what you're asking them to do. If you think they can get it done in 6 weeks, give them 8 just in case you were wrong. The last thing you want is to get to the end and have no one able to win because they didn't have sufficient time. That will really take the wind out of your sales sail.
5. Be the kind of boss that tells employees if they're doing a great Job. You can take this occasion to be the guy or gal that stops by someones cube and says 'great Job on the contest'. When it's all over, write the winners a hand written note. It takes two minutes out of your day, but goes a long way to showing the worker that you're happy they are working for you.
