Introduction
Sustaining long-term growth is a crucial objective for most businesses. It is achieved through a combination of business practices. However, one practice that is usually overlooked by many companies, is implementing Sales Incentives for their sales teams. Motivating your sales teams is an important practice and this often considered a challenge. Today’s sales environment is more competitive than ever, with longer sales cycles, complex products, and more decision-makers in the buyer journey. Companies can leverage our Sales Platform as a Sales Incentive strategy to drive motivation and results among sales teams. Sales incentives not only drive performance by fostering healthy competition among sales teams but also align directly with a company’s broader business objectives.
Sales Incentives are rewards or “catalysts” offered to salespeople or sales teams to encourage them to hit certain sales targets and boost performance. These incentives can be monetary (commission, bonuses, coupons etc) or non-monetary (extra holidays, recognition, awards, etc.) and are given as rewards for achieving specific goals or outcomes. Whether it’s boosting quarterly performance or driving attention to a new product, incentives provide focus and fuel ambition.
In this article, we’ll break down the importance of sales incentives, why they’re essential to a business’ success, and share some of the most effective types of incentives used by high-performing teams.
Why are sales incentives necessary?
Sales incentives are necessary for various reasons. They help reward sales performance and recognise talent. They help increase brand engagement, enhance motivation and create a positive working culture among the sales staff. It isn’t just about boosting company sales. They encourage healthy competition and acknowledge the sales teams for their hard work. Sales incentives is a smart strategy that facilitates team collaboration, productivity and improves motivation, making sales teams feel appreciated and valued.
Sales incentives is a vital practice to reward and celebrate success and achievement while offering respect and support to sales teams. Some of the common reasons why companies should offer sales incentives are listed below:
- Improve Motivation: sales incentives help boost motivation by boosting morale and confidence. When salespeople are rewarded for their efforts, it encourages them to improve their performance. Incentivising their efforts pushes sales teams to outperform previous targets, work harder, and achieve bigger goals.
- Fosters Healthy Competition: team-based or leaderboard-style incentives help drive friendly competition among teams. This helps energise the workplace and motivates average performers to level up.
- Improves Engagement: incentivising sales staff, helps increase engagement within the team and improves company dynamics. It allows teams to collaborate and communicate effectively and strengthens employee relationships. It also encourages respect and sharing a common business purpose, driving better results.
- Retaining Talent: recognising and rewarding talent leads to higher job satisfaction among sales teams. As a result, salespeople who feel valued are more likely to stay and grow within the company.
- Driving Specific Business Goals: some business objectives are not just about increasing revenue. Incentives can be structured to focus on more than one purpose, like, promoting a new product, targeting a specific region or shortening the sales cycle.
Some Common Sales Incentives to Consider
Sales incentives aren’t one-size-fits-all kind of rewards. They can be customised to reflect a company’s specific objectives and the unique needs of its sales team. From short-term reward schemes to long-term recognition programs, incentives can be personalised and focus to drive the right behaviours and outcomes. Sales Incentives can vary and either be monetary or non-monetary to suit a company’s rewarding culture.
Here are some common examples:
Monetary Sales Incentives
- Commission- a percentage amount earned on a specific sale or target.
- Bonus- a fixed amount of money earned on hitting a sales target or a specific goal.
- Gift cards- physical or digital gift cards with a certain amount of redeemable money.
- Stock options- a monetary compensation given to sales staff to invest in the company by buying company stocks.
- Cash rewards- direct cash given to employees as a reward.
Non-monetary Sales Incentives
- Recognition and awards- certain awards, certificates or titles to reward sales teams and their efforts, like “salesperson of the month”, “highest sales in the quarter” etc.
- Digital gift cards – delivered in real-time for instant reward gratification.
- Extra paid time off- offering extra paid holidays to reward staff for their performance.
- Gifts- physical goods or merchandises given as rewards such as laptops, refrigerators or TVs.
- Event tickets- experience based rewards like paid trips, event or activity tickets, shared experiences.
- Professional development rewards- self-development training courses or workshop opportunities for sales teams.
Conclusion
Our Sales Platform has helped global brands like Honda and Sky reward their sales teams by prioritising reward behaviour and enhancing brand engagement. At Ovation Incentives, we’ve transformed the incentives experience through gamification, creating a unique and engaging platform designed to motivate your salespeople by promoting healthy competition whilst providing space for professional development and training. A powerful and customisable platform to help you implement the perfect sales incentives for your sales teams.
Searching for the right sales incentives for your team? Look no further!
Get in touch now to learn more about our Sales Platform or book a demo.