Support people frequently see - and hear about - the large gifts or rewards given to the sales people in their business. And these gifts or rewards - such as the annual sales dinner, the ‘conferences’ away and, of course, the money - seem even larger when compared with their own salary.
Sales people get all the glory because they are the people who get the sale. Often however there are several other people ‘back at the office’ who assist. Without sales support staff providing information, backup, leads, and processing the paperwork, the sale would never be achieved.
This perceived lack of recognition can be extremely demotivating, as support people know the potential impact they can have on whether a sales person achieves targets. In some businesses they are also viewed as ‘menials’ and treated as such with little regard or respect given to them.
Providing support staff with recognition via an incentive and reward plan can motivate not only them but everyone else in the sales team.
Set up is critical
Is there a difference between an incentive and a reward? Absolutely.
A reward is something given without individuals having to meet specific criteria or goals - like the annual bonus.
An incentive is a gift or prize which is received by meeting - or exceeding - clearly defined goals and targets. An incentive focuses on recognising certain desired behaviour. Because there is a direct link between that behaviour and achievement of the incentive it is more likely to be repeated in the future.
However we all know it is much easier to measure the performance of a sales person than a support person. This ‘fact’ is at the heart of many arguments for not including support people in the incentive plan. The ‘fact’ is that we are more used to measuring performance of sales people. But, performance of support people can be measured.
Things like timely provision of information, time taken to process sale, the type and level of support given, collation and preparation of sales data – these are all measurable.
Setting clear goals for the achievement of measurable outcomes for the support people will motivate everyone.
Follow the SMART criteria - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timebound - to set these goals and everyone will know when they are on the road to achieving an incentive or reward.
Incentives can be structured in various ways:
- Individual or team goals
- Tied to a particular sales person’s results
- Fixed value or a scale
- Points tables can be used to accumulate value from a number of achievements. This format is well understood by everyone as it is used in loyalty programmes.
- Percentage split for personal, department and overall business achievement. In this case sales support staff should have control over being able to achieve at least 80% of their incentive with 20% or less being a component of overall business achievement, such as profit.
Regular feedback is important at all times, but particularly with an incentive so individuals know how they are progressing towards goals. This is critical to ensure people stay on board.
The ability to access a gift or reward quickly is also important, particularly in the early days. Support people are often not used to this incentive system applying to them and need to feel the gifts are obtainable, and to see the benefit quickly. Otherwise the focus will be lost. Impromptu rewards can be a great way to bolster flagging motivation to achieve incentives.
Which reward?
The type of reward that may be offered is limited only by your imagination.
We all like to be asked for our opinion. Whilst $ are important to some, for many money ranks after merchandise, travel and vouchers. Therefore asking support people what they would prefer - even from a range of choices - will give you a better result.
One client found out his people preferred store vouchers, so he gave them Myers or David Jones. However this did not have the positive impact he was expecting. It turned out the people he was rewarding shopped at Target or Kmart and saw the other stores as being too expensive and therefore not value for money.
A primary goal of an incentive plan is to provide recognition - particularly to high achievers - and sales conferences are designed to do just this. Including support people (as attendees, not organisers) at the annual sales conference, or putting on a smaller local conference, may be appreciated - although not everyone likes to be in the limelight.
Another client has embraced the principles of ‘life long learning’ - that someone who is interested in learning in any field is more likely to be interested and productive in other areas. He decided to offer people who qualified the opportunity to pursue further study, including allowing people to take time off. He quickly found that not everyone wanted to study a subject that was directly relevant to their role and agreed to also fund people who wanted to learn other things - one of his team is now learning belly dancing!
To extend the range of incentives you could offer, several third party companies facilitate the management of incentive schemes and provide a wide range of gifts or benefits. These are generally accessed using a card which accrues value. Participants are then able to go online and use the card to select their preferred reward.
In summary
Including support staff in your incentive plan can motivate not only them, but the whole sales team. Bearing in mind a few key principles will allow you to structure an effective incentive for your sales support staff.
- Set goals using SMART principles
- Allow for input on what gift(s) would be appreciated
- Aim for early achievement of incentives
- Provide regular feedback
- Make rewards available frequently