The Art of Motivating SalespeopleWritten by John Boe
When tide comes in, all boats in harbor go up! The long-term benefit of an incentive program is to coax your sales force out of their production comfort zone. Once a salesperson stretches to a new level of personal production, their self-confidence and expectations skyrocket. Traditionally, sales managers have relied primarily on commission to motivate their sales force. Unfortunately, a compensation structure based solely on commission does not address separate motivational factors and therefore, commission alone will not motivate your sales force to peak performance. The challenge of designing an effective sales incentive contest is that it should not only appeal to your top producers, but it must also excite average to below average salespeople as well. A successful incentive program is a mixture of awards, recognition, and peer pressure. To encourage salespeople to reach their full potential, successful managers personalize incentives. The secret to motivating a salesperson lies in discovering their “hot buttons” and designing an incentive program that showcases them. You can identify your salespeople’s hot buttons by getting to know their interests, hobbies, and recreational activities. While money is certainly an important ingredient in any incentive program, it should by no means be only tool in a manager’s motivational toolbox. If money by itself were a sufficient motivation, salespeople would simply sell more without additional enticement. Once you have identified meaningful hot button incentives, you are now ready to develop a written program that is understandable, measurable, and achievable. Any program that does not take these three critical components into consideration during design phase will be confusing and more than likely counter-productive. In order for your program to be financially self-sustaining, you must reward productivity, not activity. In other words, don’t pay on attempt, pay on measurable results. One of biggest mistakes a manager can make is to water down incentives by under funding program. A well-structured program will more than pay for itself from increased revenue it generates.
| | THE ULTIMATE SALES ORGANIZATIONWritten by Chris Bradford
If you want a great sales organization to emulate, you only have to look as far as your local church. Consider these points:PRODUCT OR SERVICE: What does a church have to offer, but faith? They sell faith to millions of members nationwide. This is not a tangible. It is not even like a life insurance policy. A life insurance policy leaves money for your family when you are gone. Faith leaves only hope. If they can get people to buy faith alone, shouldn't you be able to sell people your opportunity or products? FREE DISTRIBUTORS: Religious organizations have many thousands of organization members out beating bushes each week, trying to bring in new recruits. Best of all, they do all this without compensation! If religious organizations can fire up thousands of people to go out and promote their interests for free, why is it you have so many problems firing up your downline when they get paid for their efforts? How is it a religious organization is able to accomplish these feats? It is simple. They have it down to a system. One that has been tried and proven for centuries. Take your typical church service. Almost all of them are same. They start out with singing to get crowd fired up and motivated. Then they immediately hit them with collection plate, when excitement of singing will insure they are willing to give most. They then follow up with sermon, which usually has a fiery message and a strong close, and then almost beg those who are willing to join to come on down and sign up! Why is it most church services are so similar? Because, it works! Wouldn't this be a good model for an opportunity meeting? Of course, singing might be a little awkward, but you could replace it with a very strong motivational speaker.
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