With the sales world constantly changing, it is incentives, not just products, that are driving performance – but only when crafted with thought and precision to tap the full flow of commitment from the sales force.
Aligning Aspirations for Unified Impact
At the point of reinvention, this awareness finds deep resonance in a company’s incentive plans that tie individual achievement to corporate objectives. When personal goals become part of the company’s mission, then sales teams with aligned incentives can be counted on to perform at maximum potential. And charged teams translate to maximised enterprise performance.
Synergy as the Catalyst for Market Conquests
A final class of incentives goes beyond rewarding individual accomplishments. Creative organisations recognise the power of synergy in their incentive plans. Switching incentives from individuals to teams transforms sales teams into more than just an aggregation of individual efforts. Working as a team generates collective responsibility and achievement. Every victory is a victory for everyone involved. It creates a force to be reckoned with in a marketplace.
Illuminating Paths with Transparent Objectives
When there are too many getting lost among those sales targets, companies with the clearest objectives are rewarded with better results Issuing incentives in the form of transparent goals helps reveal the path forward in one of the most complex of career challenges. What emerges from our data is that sales teams are most motivated by a meaningful undertaking. When teams can see the stake laid down, they compete in a way that at once recognises that path. They’re fired up with a sense of greater purpose and are specifically charged with achieving those goals.
Recognition as the Catalyst of Motivation
Astute organisations have built layers, or wings, of recognition and appreciation upon those shores of motivation in their incentive plans. Beyond financial rewards, recognition that acknowledges the achievement publically, with personal ceremonies or citizenship inductions, are often the lifeblood to maintaining momentum and the fuel that enables sales teams to prevail through hard times. It reinforces the culture and the virtuous cycle of challenge, solution, and ongoing performance improvement.
Adaptability in the Face of Market Dynamics
Given the fluid nature of market dynamics, smart companies have embraced adaptability as a hallmark of incentive compensation plans. Rather than viewing an incentive plan as a static constraint, high-performing companies have learned to treat them as more flexible tools that bend, stretch and respond to changes in the markets. Effective sales coaches regularly review incentive plans to ensure that they are updated, accurate and flexible – allowing for flexibility for their sales teams to react to changes in the market.
Simply put, it is the winning sales engagement alchemy that adds the oomph to incentive plans that are designed to provide the much needed emotional leverage associated with individual aspirations, cohesive teamwork, transparent marching orders, timely reinforcement and encouragement, and dynamic elasticity to sales plan that ebbs and flows with the ever-changing market conditions. When Done Right, they boost the level of engagement across sales teams and transform them to well-tune instruments that drive sales organizations to the zenith of their existence in the realm of sales Managing Incentive Plans is not merely about managing money and making payouts. It is about crafting a strategic play that taps into the emotions in the minds of every salesperson that collectively prime them for success.
