How to Design a Successful Sales Incentive Program

Whether you are promoting a new product or trying to garner more interest in existing products, a sales incentive program can be your ticket to boosting profits, but you have to do it the right way to be successful. Missteps can leave a program dead in the water before you even get started, which is a huge waste of time and money. We want to offer some assistance with developing your program, so you can ensure it will be triumphant.

Assess Your Situation

The best start to your sales incentive program is to take a look at your sales staff. Think about the various locations and people you are working with. A successful sales incentive program must be tailored to everyone. You don’t want to leave anyone out or make it more difficult for one group of employees to do as well as another group.

You want to design a system that will offer the same rewards and benefits to everyone on your sales team. You may need to hold meetings with managers and get more information on each location to ensure that you are being as comprehensive as possible. What works for one area may not work for another, but that can be hard to know without getting input from those who work in each area. Working with your managers can enable you to better get an idea of what type of program would work the best on a large scale.

Communicate Objectives Clearly

You also need to ensure the program is clearly explained to everyone involved. Your employees should be able to easily understand how the program works. They should be able to get questions answered quickly and know who the contact person is for the program. You need to ensure that it is straightforward and that the process of earning rewards is not so complex it will confuse people. Confusion can lead to a decrease in engagement, which can reduce the program’s effectiveness.

Develop the System

You want to develop a system of rewards and methods for obtaining those rewards that make sense for your business. There should be a centralized platform where employees or managers can report the progress of each location. It is nice if rewards are given as soon as goals are accomplished instead of holding them until the end of a specific time period. Using a point system makes it easy to manage and allows everyone to easily see where they stand.

Make sure as you are creating the program that you test it out before launching company-wide and ensure it will work as planned. This will help you find issues and ensure that it is clear for employees. You may want to try a test run using your managers first. This will give you a practical idea of how the program will work and whether it will work before unleashing it on your employees.

Focus on Rewards People Care About

One of the most important parts of your program will be the rewards. You want to give your employees something worthwhile to work towards. Whatever you provide as rewards need to be something your employees would want. It is a great idea to offer high-end products that your employees may not necessarily buy for themselves but that they would be more than happy to work to earn. Make sure to provide a nice selection of items that will appeal to a wide range of people. You want to be sure there is something for everyone. Allow your employees to view and redeem for rewards at any time during the program. This provides an extra incentive for them to work hard.

How to Get Started

A solid sales incentive program will encourage your employees to work harder and increase both productivity and sales. Ideally, it will make your sales team better and give customers a better overall experience. Just remember that if it is done wrong, it can be a huge flop that could hurt morale. So, plan your program carefully for the best results.

Don’t forget that at Rymax, we offer a large selection of products from the top brands that make the perfect rewards to offer in your sales incentive program. We provide unique items from sought-after brands that will be items your employees should enjoy working to earn.