A best sales organisational design strategies involve the crafting of the right sales incentive programs; the one in which effort expended will match the reward they receive is like the perfect symphony. And not every orchestra plays Mozart the same. What exactly distinguishes companies that get sales incentive strategies right from those that get them wrong? In this study, we reveal the characteristics of those organisations that get sales compensation right and set themselves apart from the others.
1. Strategic Alignment: If you have a successful sales incentive strategy, one of the most critical aspects is strategic alignment. For all of those dollars you’re investing in incentives to motivate your sales force, you will get far greater returns on those investments if all sales incentive programmes reinforce overarching business strategies.
2. Insight-Guided Bravery: Not smart guesswork but hard truths drive precision in effective sales incentive programmes. Companies that leverage advanced analytics and real-time performance data get the lead. They know what motivates, and can calibrate incentives to fine-tune the sweet spot between what is practically doable and what is reward-worthy.
3. Continuous evolution: Stagnation is sales’ enemy but organisation’s friend. Organisations that continually refine their incentive strategies as market dynamics, industry shifts and internal transitions unfold, find keeping up a constant process. Regular reviews, benchmarking exercises or new technologies give organisation the means to adapt incentive plans to the times. It is how organisations that get it right stay on top.
4.Creating a Performance Culture: The best organisations recognise that good sales incentives are anchored in culture, and building a performance culture of recognition and high performance fosters a self-reinforcing success. Recognition, career development opportunities and purpose come to occupy a central place in their incentive design.
5. Collaboration and Communication: The best of all worlds can fall flat through poor communication and collaboration. Companies that share information, such as open dialogue by senior management about incentive construction, who is eligible and how, and develop processes to share metrics for performance targets, will boost their sales team’s satisfaction and confidence in their incentive programmes. It is equally important to foster collaboration between the sales team and other parts of the company so that those working across the business can check that individual and team incentives don’t undermine rather than complement overall organisational goals. 6. Technology Integration: The changing face of technology is the biggest differentiator in the art and science of sales incentives. In the digital era, organisations that use leadership and sales performance management tools powered by artificial intelligence and automation are able to have a better advantage over its competitors. Such technologies enable organisations to run the incentive processes much faster, get the results more accurate, and have data at their fingertips in real time, providing them with an information advantage to adapt faster to business changes. The achievement of the ultimate music note in the perfect melody of sales incentives brings together the strategic messages, operational intricacies guided by data, evolutionary period for refreshment, empowerment of a performance culture, constant communication and smart technology to come together as one. Successful organisations indicate how those various components need to become a well-synchronised instrument to fire up the engine of their sales performance. Sales compensation practitioners, as thought leaders and catalysts of change, know that this music of life – sales incentives – journey is never static, so get your concert right with a perfect fusion to ignite your organisation’s sustainable performance.
