Five Best Practices for Local Incentives

This type of thinking brings to mind a common “I’m an incentives expert”
story: A talented and energetic sales manager thought he had put together
the perfect contest – the top quarterly sales person earns a one week trip
to Paris. Awesome, right? Halfway through the contest, he noticed overall
results were well below expectations so he reached out to his top sales
rep (who was also behind previous sales benchmarks) and heard, “I have
three kids. I can’t take a week-long trip to Europe during the school year –
not interested.”

Other high-performing reps were also disengaged due to
unrealistic goals, lack of understanding their progress compared to others
and a general sense of apathy. They all assumed the top rep would be
winning the trip so didn’t think it was worth bothering. At the conclusion of
his failed contest, he ended up rewarding a below-average performer with
an incredible trip to France. Meanwhile, quarterly sales were in the tank and
the majority of his salesforce was disengaged.

This waste of time, money and resources could have been prevented if the
sales manager had used five best practices for running incentives at the
local level.

1. Consistency

2. Governance

3. Transparency

4. Vividness

5. Goals