Years ago, I was talking with a prospect, and he shared with me his concern over a failed mid-year sales incentive program. We discussed the various program components, and when I asked how he had communicated the program to his sales force, he indicated that he had made a “big splash” when kicking off the six-month program, which had him perplexed as to why the promotion wasn’t a success. As we dug into specifics however, the gentleman admitted that, other than monthly sales volume statements, he had not promoted the program once during its six month run. He just expected his sales team to remember that the incentives were out there and to get selling. Case closed. Looking back, I can only wish that all of our clients’ problems were as easy to diagnose and fix.
When sales incentive programs don’t drive results as planned, it is often because the sales organization forgot to pay close enough attention to one or more of six key program components; let’s call them the Incentive Building Blocks:
Performance Plan, Communications Campaign, Training, Rewards, Analytics and Recognition.
Sales and marketing managers are already familiar with each of these program elements, but over the following blog entries we’ll dig into each of them in depth as a refresher course on incentive program design. The reality is that most incentive solutions in place today are lacking attention to some of the Building Blocks, hindering the chances for optimal sales results.
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