Teachers use the tried-and-true gold star sticker to motivate students in the classroom, and nothing gets a puppy to sit and shake a paw like a delectable liver-flavored dog treat. You may be trying to cut expenses in these tough economic times, but rewards can provide the incentive needed to motivate employees to land new customers for your business.
Sales incentive programs have been around for a long time because they work by appealing to the competitive nature of sales people. There’s an entire industry devoted to coordinating and promoting incentive sales programs for large companies. But don’t dismiss the idea of incentives just because you don’t have a huge pool of salespeople out beating the bushes for your company. A simple incentive program can benefit your company too.
To Sell or Not to Sell
Imagine this scenario: your receptionist overhears a mother and daughter arguing at lunch about the daughter’s upcoming wedding. The daughter wants an outdoor wedding at the family homestead, but mom doesn’t want “all those people traipsing through the house to use the bathroom after they’ve had too much to drink.”
Now, if your receptionist knows that approaching these diners, handing them a business card and explaining how portable restrooms provided by your company would be clean, nice-looking and keep the revelers out of the house could result in her next few lunches being on the company, she just might stick her neck out. If the only result she’ll ever see from approaching them is more paperwork, she’ll just keep on shoveling salad into her mouth.
Or how about this one: one of your route drivers is also a biker. He hears that the local motorcycle dealership where he hangs out after work is planning a rally in the spring. He mentions this to you and you land the portable restroom contract for the event because you were the first company to call. Present him a nice reward in front of all your employees. You can bet they’ll all be keeping their eyes and ears open for customers in the future.
Design an Incentive Program That Works
Tell people about it. Get people thinking like salespeople regardless of their actual job titles. Remind them frequently of the fabulous rewards you are offering for productive sales leads.
Make sure the reward is something of value to employees. Consider who your employees are when selecting rewards to offer. Don’t offer ballet tickets to a group of NASCAR fans. Avoid a travel prize if most employees would struggle to arrange for childcare to use it. A practical solution is to offer several options of equal value and let the employee choose their reward.
Make sure employees’ spouses and families know about the incentive program too. Now you’ve doubled or tripled your “sales force.”
If you promise it; deliver it. The quickest way to turn employees off to the whole idea is to announce that you’ll reward them for referrals that pan out and then renege, saying the company can’t afford the reward right now.
Publicly recognize those who earn rewards. People are naturally competitive. If Tom sees Bob getting a reward he’ll want one too, so he’ll search a little harder for potential customers.
Don’t set the goal so high that it’s viewed as unachievable. If you only reward new contracts for more than 100 restrooms, people might not even try.
If the incentive is monetary, make it separate from the regular paycheck. Present a separate check on a separate day. You want employees to understand that this reward is for going “above and beyond.”
Make the reward commensurable with the deal. If an employee lands a 100-restroom contract for six months, a coupon good for a fast-food cheeseburger is not enough to inspire a repeat performance.
Reticular Activating
The result of rewarding anyone who contributes to company sales is a sales force made up of everyone associated with your company. The reality is, anybody can be trained to sell your services, including employees, friends and family. Teach people to listen for key words in conversations — like “outdoor wedding,” “event planning” or “construction project” to recognize circumstances where they can, through your company, provide a solution to someone’s problem.
Once people start hearing of potential business opportunities, they won’t stop. It’s similar to what happens when you buy a new vehicle. Say, for example, you purchase a dark blue mini van. The minute you drive it off the car dealer’s lot you will start seeing people driving dark blue mini vans everywhere you look. Suddenly there will be huge fleets of them that you never noticed before.
Why? You can chalk it up to your reticular activating system at work. A lot of research has been done on the reticular activating system of the human brain, and the bottom line is this: People see the things that are relevant to them; they don't see what’s not relevant. The dark blue mini vans were there before, but you had no reason to notice them.
The same is true for potential customers. They are out there; you just have to inspire employees to start noticing them. Training everyone in the company to listen for comments relevant to your business by promising to reward referrals opens up new avenues of opportunity for the company. Just make sure the reward is worth the effort.
