to seek out your top performers early in your tenure – you’ll stand a better chance of keeping them. Ig- noring them may send a message that their loyalty and contribution are unappreciated. Understanding top performers is the first step in understanding the state of talent in your organization, and should provide insight into what works, what doesn’t, and why.
4. Understand and refine your sales process. Understanding before refining ensures you won’t try to implement something that won’t actually work. The best sales processes are aligned with your customer’s preferences, so, as buying preferences change, so should sales processes.
5. Implement better sales train- ing. Money is often wasted on training that only addresses symptoms and not the underly- ing causes. If you’ve taken time to understand your buyer and
SELLING TIP Simplify Contests
Sales incentive contests can be very simple (the next rep to sell a magazine subscription gets this $20 bill!) or super complicated (practically requiring a working knowledge of calculus to figure them out). But, no matter what type of program you run, there’s always room for improvement. Imprint Magazine offers the following tips for making sure your next program squeezes the maximum motivation out of your sales team. 1. Look back: Start by examining programs your organization has run in the past. What worked (and what didn’t) in terms of rules, regulations, structures, and prizes? When you design the new program, make sure you focus on letting people know what’s expected and how they can achieve their goals – as well as focus on helping them get there and keeping them motivated throughout the contest.
2. Point of order: Structure is extremely important for creating an equitable and motivational incentive. Consider splitting points. For example, you might place a greater point value on slower-moving products than the items that practically sell themselves. This is a good way to use incentives to achieve specific product sales goals.
3. Promote from within: Allot from 20-25 percent of your program budget to internal promotion. The longer the contest, the more you need to remind people about it and keep them focused on achieving their goals. What- ever you do, don’t just announce a 12-month-long contest at the beginning of the year and then ignore it until it’s almost over. That’s a recipe for failure.
4. Theme up: There are hundreds – perhaps thousands – of potential themes for a sales incentive contest. It doesn’t matter which one you choose, as long as you pick one. Once you’ve settled on a theme, design a logo and imprint that logo on every contest-related correspondence you send out. Individual communications might include an announcement kit, monthly scorecards, and intermittent reminders featuring motivational slogans or exhortations. Unquestionably, a universal theme that carries through the duration of the contest will keep your salespeople’s eyes on their prizes.
– MALCOLM FLESCHNER SELLING POWER SEPTEMBER 2016 | 31 © 2016 SELLING POWER. CALL 1-800-752-7355 FOR REPRINT PERMISSION.
align your sales processes, con- tent, and tools, then you can train your salespeople on the meth- ods, skills, and tools necessary to execute that process.
6. Establish sales management cadence. As a sales leader, you’re not just responsible for lead- ing your sales organization, but you’re also a member of the lead- ership team. You need to provide the team accurate information, with efficiency and consistency.
7. Implement tools that enable suc- cessful sales execution. The cost of tools and apps can really add up, so don’t buy tools reactively. Be strategic. Take your buyer- aligned sales process and identify what specific tools are needed to make the salesperson more effec- tive and efficient.
8. Get the coverage model right. Realigning territories and adding or subtracting people are often highly disruptive. So, when you
do it, get it right and do it on a proper foundation. Get your coverage model right and you’ll optimize the return on your go- to-market investments.
Many new sales leaders will tweak the compensation plan, buy a couple of tools, and then hold a training event at a sales kick-off meeting because these are relatively easy to do – and are highly visible. Our New Sales Leader Success Roadmap makes intuitive sense, to create a solid foundation for sus- tained success. Get more details and in-depth findings/explanations of the research by reading the full report. Download our New Sales Leader Survival Guide.
Dario Priolo is the chief marketing officer and leads a practice focused on demand generation at Sales Performance Interna- tional (SPI). SPI was included on Selling Power’s 2016 list of the Top 20 sales train- ing companies.
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