12 Strategies to Incentivize Your Sales Team Effectively

The sales profession entails a set of uniquely demanding challenges, like a constant specter of rejection and high-pressure, demanding interactions that can drain and demotivate the staff quickly. In this scenario, it is imperative for companies to provide robust incentives and unwavering support to their sales team to prevent performance slumps and high turnover rates.

Properly planned and awarded incentives can also motivate sales teams to perform better and exceed expectations. A driven staff can substantially increase client acquisition and sales, leading to improved financial outcomes for the company. In this article, we will explore factors driving job satisfaction and motivation for employees in sales. We will also discuss practical, cost-effective strategies for incentivizing sales teams.

Strategies to incentivize your sales team effectively

Some crucial strategies that companies can use to understand how to incentivize their sales staff are listed as follows:

1. Understanding sales team motivation

The first step to correctly incentivizing your sales teams is to understand what drives them. While most organizations stick to providing financial incentives, it might not always be what the sales team needs. It is high time that companies realize and accept the fact that human beings are beyond just money-driven, materialistic beings.

There is a plethora of emotional, social, and personal needs that employees need to meet at their workplace to feel satisfied and perform well. Companies that understand and account for these needs effortlessly stand apart and succeed in attracting and retaining top talent year after year. A report by IRF effectively highlights this belief by stating that 90 percent of top performing companies use incentive programs to motivate their sales staff.

A great example of this is Nike. The global footwear and apparel brand provides many thoughtful leaves like mental health days and paid menstrual leaves to its employees. Naturally, this makes the staff feel seen and valued which leads them to openly praise the brand policies. Positive feedback like this raises brand credibility and helps attract top talent.

2. Setting clear and achievable sales goals

Setting unrealistically high or ambitious sales goals can overwhelm your employees and hinder their success at the workplace. If an organization repeatedly sets such goals, the sales staff may feel like they are being set up for failure. In this scenario, the company may receive bad rapport and an increase in recruitment costs because of the high employee turnover. This is why it is critical to always set realistic and achievable goals.

By a rule of thumb, any goal should be SMART- specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Setting SMART goals and communicating them effectively will allow you to maximize your sales staff’s performance without burning them out. Additionally, aligning the overall team goals with employee’s personal goals is another way to achieve fruitful results.

Helping employees hit personal goals like learning a new skill or developing confidence while on the job will improve their perspective on their work. It will also boost their loyalty towards the company and motivate them to stay longer and perform better.

3. Diverse incentive structures

As established, there is more to motivating your sales staff than just rewarding them with bonuses and hikes. Research indicates that the best way of incentivizing your sales teams is by using a balanced strategy that involves both financial and non-financial rewards.

While monetary incentives like commissions and profit sharing are always part of the answer, they need to be seamlessly combined with non-monetary motivators like recognition, awards, and promotions to be thoroughly effective. According to IRF’s research, the number of firms utilizing non-financial incentives went from 25 percent in 1990s to 80 percent in 2016, which highlights that brands are increasingly accepting the importance of a mixed strategy to incentives.

Google has this concept nailed in its employee incentive policies. They offer their employees impressive pay packages, bonuses, and other financial benefits along with a well-equipped workspace, free food, attractive medical packages, and whatnot that makes them an irresistible magnet for top talent globally.

4. Tiered and performance-based incentives

Tiered compensations are a great way to motivate your sales teams to not just meet their targets but to exceed them. Since this approach follows a progressive incentive, it encourages employees to independently seek to maximize performance in hopes of getting the most benefits.

Similarly, performance-based incentives also help in optimizing employee performance. By rewarding top performers richly, an outcome-driven system reinstates an environment of hard work and enthusiasm in the company. It increases the stakes of employee performance beyond their guaranteed salary, and thus helps avoid complacency.

For instance, Adobe relies on several performance-based incentives like commissions, stock options, etc., to motivate its staff. The brand clearly and fairly communicates the rules and rewards to its employees so they know what’s on the line.

5. Real-time feedback and recognition

It is common for those at the top to assume that a carrot and stick approach is the best motivator for those under them, but that is just a misconception. According to a very famous psychological theory by Abraham Maslow, once a person's basic needs like food and shelter are met, they move on to seek higher levels of human needs like social company, appreciation, and a sense of achievement.

Going by this established theory, while monetary rewards are a great start to incentives, they need to be complemented with non-monetary factors to stay relevant in the long run. This essentially means that over time, people can become complacent to money if that is the only positive they are getting from their job.

Employees must receive regular appreciation, feedback, and other non-financial approvals that are necessary for their well-being. If done correctly, this approach would make employees feel seen and valued. It will make them strive to work hard for their company and deliver unmatched results.

Nestle, for instance, is a great sport about this as their policies underline a recurrent feedback mechanism for employees to improve and be appreciated. They also provide comprehensive training options, fund employee education, and allow flexible work to aid their employees.

6. Sales contests and challenges

One of the best incentives for sales teams is a sense of healthy competition. By providing a common goal and letting employees on the same level compete against each other, companies can introduce a fun and challenging vibe to the mundane work processes.

Rewarding and recognizing the winners and best performers publicly will allow sales employees to push their limits and think innovatively to win. A game-like environment also makes people more open to negative feedback and loss, which, in turn, improves their work.

To make the most of such an approach, it is important to communicate the rules, performance metrics, and awards of the competition beforehand in a clear and concise manner. It is also vital to maintain transparent performance tracking channels to avoid any injustice or bias. Lastly, the rewards announced should be at par with the scale of the competition to maintain relevance.

7. Sales training and development opportunities

Investing in ongoing sales training and skill development is vital for companies. Upskilled sales staff is likely to perform better and generate greater revenue. KPMG states that companies that invest in employee upskilling generate 4 times as much profit as those who don’t.  Firms may choose to have in-house skill development centers or outsource the mentorship. They can also opt to simply fund staff education like Nestle.

Companies should felicitate the completion of training and any other upskilling with certificates, recognition, and other incentives to keep employees encouraged for further endeavors. Workday, a world-renowned employee management platform, provides employee skill development as an incentive, and as per their internal surveys, they have achieved a success rate of 95 percent with this approach.

8. Gamification in sales

With over 3 billion active gamers worldwide, it is safe to say that in the present day, people have a great affinity for game-like simulations. A lot of the brands are now using this preference to boost employee engagement.

By introducing a game-like environment in the day-to-day work of the sales team, companies can greatly reduce the staff’s burden and worries, and replace it with a fun and healthy competition.

Elements like leaderboards, badges, and point systems can be used to make the sales work more engaging. Using a system of recognition and rewards to celebrate the winners can help increase the relevance and lure of the entire system.

9. Feedback and collaboration channels

Even when you incentivize your sales staff well, there are chances that they might still not be satisfied. Some reasons for this may be improper implementation of the policies on a practical level, misunderstanding of employee motivators, etc. To avoid a situation like this, employers need to create clear channels for open communication and feedback.

It is advisable to make these feedback systems anonymous so people can speak their truth without any fear. If any negative feedback comes up, it is best to tweak policies and improve the experience.

Another way of improving team collaboration is by organizing regular sales team meetings and brainstorming sessions. A welcoming environment can be useful for employees to open up and share their innovative ideas.

10. Data-driven sales incentives

An approach that rewards all positive performers equally may seem alright on the surface but can cause feelings of injustice in employees when actually applied.

For example, if an employee who brings 25 percent more sales and one who brings 75 percent more sales are both rewarded with the same amount, then the results may be counter-productive. The rewards extended to any employee should be in line with their achievements.

To avoid such unfairness, companies should use data-driven analytics to identify top performers and honor them accordingly. Companies may also utilize this data to recognize employees who improve consistently and reward them for their positive behavior.

11. Flexibility and adaptability

An important factor to consider while deciding rewards for employees is the market trends and conditions. For example, people are increasingly becoming inclined to fitness and spirituality nowadays.

Thus, rewarding someone with a retreat or a year-long membership of their favorite gym may be a great idea. A personalized and relevant incentive like this will likely have more of an impact than, say, a relatively pricier option that has no personal relevance to the employee.

It is also crucial for companies to give awards that are in alignment with the position of the employees. For example, a certificate may not be a fitting reward for a managerial employee but it can be a worthy recognition for a new intern. Remember that policies are often dynamic and as long as you gather feedback from the sales team on incentive effectiveness and modify as needed, it is all good.

12. Measuring the impact of incentives

While planning an incentive program, it is very important to have clearly defined measures of the program’s effectiveness. The data collected from the employees, both quantitative and qualitative, should be studied at regular intervals to determine if the incentivizing had any genuine impact on the sales staff.

Based on the results of this, companies should tweak or change the policies to get the best results on their incentive schemes.

Conclusion

Without consistent and appropriate incentives, your sales team might experience a decline in motivation or even consider leaving. To prevent such a scenario, it is crucial for companies to establish transparent and equitable performance reward systems.

These systems should be straightforward to monitor and tailored to maximize their effectiveness. Furthermore, organizations should regularly assess the suitability and performance of these incentive programs to confirm their alignment with intended goals.

If they are not yielding the desired results, adjustments should be implemented as necessary.