You will not get anything with a winning shot or without thinking your salespeople mindset. To get the performance, you must rely on the regularity in the motivation of your sales teams. This is the goal of an effective incentive compensation system!
You do not become a champion with the simple wave of a magic wand. To be sure of making the winning move to your employees and therefore to your company, you must establish yourself as the real master of your strategy. Because a successful variable compensation is thought of in the long term, in order to integrate it effectively into your commercial strategy. That's what makes it an excellent lever to improve the daily motivation of your sales representatives and reduce your turnover.
Ready ? The ball is in your court, thanks to our five expert tips.
TIP N°1: GO TO THE NET TO HELP YOUR EMPLOYEES
Talent is not enough. The most talented sportsmen need a good coach, who knows at the same time to lead by example, to be positive, enthusiastic, observant, results oriented and communicating. Go to the net! As a business leader or sales manager, you must be able to clearly explain your ideas, set your goals, comment and reinforce your key messages.
Recognizing success is also essential for good communication.
You must know how to answer the questions of your teams, how to welcome the comments and ideas of your "athletes". This will allow you, if necessary, to modify your training plans if necessary. It's a real win-win strategy.
TIP N°2: IN TENNIS AS AT THE OFFICE, EVERYTHING IS IN THE MENTAL OF YOUR SALES PEOPLE
Motivation is not declared! To operate it, you have different levers at your disposal. Personal satisfaction in the work, recognition and valorization are among those. The development of competitiveness is also essential for the good results achieved by one to be an incentive for others. A continuous analysis of the individual performances makes it possible to better quantify the efforts of each, to evaluate the quality of the results obtained. It gives your salespeople the opportunity to identify the margins of progress that are still possible. That's all that helps to shape the minds of your champions and makes them want to win. See in this regard our wheel of motivation that will allow you in five steps to increase even more their motivation and therefore their performance.
TIP N°3: AVOID UNFORCED FAULTS
Beware of the shots in the net! That's what you risk in particular when you choose to develop a bonus scheme operating with thresholds. Each level corresponds to a bonus given for the achievement of a goal defined in advance.
At each market, your sales representative will estimate whether it is in his interest, or not, to continue his progress, to save his orders for the next period. This is called, by sales people, the “fridge effect”. This is a perverse effect that is usually observed with compensation systems developed with Excel spreadsheets or ready-to-use Excel matrices. To be fair, you have to make sure that the final trophy rewards a continuous effort, so with continuous payout curve and not by step. To do this, you must think of building up a variable compensation curve.
TIP N°4: CHOOSE A SIMPLE SYSTEM THAT DOES NOT GET OFF THE COURT
There are many ways to reward performance. Be careful not to make the system more complicated than the income tax return of a tennis player!
With a consistent goal, you must be able to accurately and sustainably set the level of performance you expect and link it to compensation. To do this, you need precise evaluation criteria based on indicators, if possible quantified: revenue collected, gross margin, customer satisfaction score, etc.
TIP N°5: THE GRAND SLAM IS NOT POSSIBLE? CHOOSE OBJECTIVES ATTAINABLE BY THE LARGEST NUMBER
Do not chase after all the balls and stay focused on goals: all goals, like all balls, are not as important as the match point.
Find the right balance for the selectivity of your compensation grid so that your bonus scheme brings as many employees as possible to performance. Finally, make the break with an efficient and motivating compensation system for the mental of your salespeople. Choose a variable compensation tool adapted to your company.
