How to Get the Most From Your Sales Team

How can you implement a sales incentive program that engages all of your sales team?

Here are a few tips:

1. Know the goal of your program 
   
   • Whether you’re looking to increase sales by x or y, having a goal everyone can understand is imperative. 
     
     
2. Segment  the audience 
   
   • As mentioned in another post, everyone is different. What will motivate one group will not motivate another. If the audience is segmented, it allows you to set different goals for each level of sales rep according to their past sales results. 
     
     
3. Set a baseline  
   
   • Baseline doesn’t always mean the quota. For people that regularly achieve over quota anyway, wouldn’t it make sense to set their incentive baseline higher than that since you know they’ll achieve it anyway? For people that don’t regularly achieve quota – setting a baseline for incrementally higher than they are achieving is still an increase in sales, relative to quota or not.
      
4. Measure the results
   
   • In order to learn, it’s essential to know how your program went. What adjustments can be made and what should stay the same?

Using this method, even if there are participants in the program that don’t achieve their goal, it is likely they still obtained some results. Meaning, sales still increased by running the incentive, so no harm done.

Don’t rely on your top talent to produce all of the company's success. If you could more evenly distribute where your numbers are coming from, why wouldn’t you? It might not seem viable from first glance but if done right – you can engage your whole sales force.