Want to know how to create a sales incentive plan? The sales team is one of the most important pillars of a company. Therefore, you must find the best way to reward their work, as they are the department that will have a direct impact on the future growth of your business.
En GumsUp experts in developing incentive plans, to motivate your workers so that they arrive at work every day with a smile on their faces. Therefore, we want to give you some guidelines on how to make a sales incentive plan adapted to your company.
5 steps to make a sales incentive plan
A sales incentive plan is a strategy designed to motivate and reward your company's sales department , with the goal of boosting performance and achieving your specific targets. Here are the key steps to creating an effective sales incentive plan!
Previous research and analysis
Before designing any incentive plan, you should thoroughly study your market, your products, your services, and your company's sales structure. You can conduct a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis to identify the key areas where you should focus your efforts.
You can also look at the past and look for a shining moment of your sales team, to try to understand what motivated them. In GumsUp we discover you different sales marketing examples so you know how to focus your strategy.
Definition of objectives and goals
To create a sales incentive plan, you must also set clear and achievable goals for your sales team. These goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, and important to them. Additionally, you'll need to determine how much time you're giving them to achieve these goals.
Make sure the goals are difficult to achieve, so that they are a challenge for them, but at the same time realistic and aligned with the objectives they have achieved so far.
Incentive design
Now it's time to choose the type of incentives you think will work best for your sales team. A good option might be to combine monetary incentives, non-monetary incentives, and recognition. For example, you could offer your employees commissions, gifts, trips, or promotions.
Try to ensure that the incentives are related to the objective they must achieve, so that they feel motivated to achieve it.
Communication and presentation of the plan
Once you've designed your incentive plan and analyzed the pros and cons of each decision, it's time to present it to your team. Explain the goals they'll need to achieve, the incentives, and the program rules clearly and concisely.
Let your sales team ask all the questions they have and make sure they fully understand how the plan works. Furthermore, consistent communication with your team from that point forward will be crucial for achieving positive results.
Implementation and monitoring
Finally, to make a sales incentive plan you must carry out the implementation of the plan. You can use a system or a platform that allows you to track the process and results of your team. In addition, workers must also be able to access this monitoring in real time and in a very transparent way. In GumsUp we offer a free demo of our software, which can give you tools to motivate your workers and analyze the results obtained.
We recommend that you evaluate the results periodically to determine if the plan is working correctly or if you need to make adjustments. Always publicly recognize the achievements of your sales team members!
Objectives of a sales incentive plan
The second step we explained in the previous section concerns the objectives your sales incentive plan must meet. We believe this is one of the most important points, because without a clear direction, you won't achieve the results you're hoping for.
It's important to choose the right goals you want to achieve; here are some examples that can inspire you:
- Increase sales: One of the main objectives of a company, when making a sales plan, is to boost the growth of its sales. This can increase the company's total income, make you able to sell more units of each product, and bring new customers to your portfolio.
- Meet sales quota: Another objective is to ensure that the sales team reaches the minimum number of sales that your company needs, in a specific period, to function well. If they exceed that number, much better.
- Retain customers: It is essential that current customers feel satisfied, to foster their loyalty. Therefore, a good goal could be to drive additional sales to current customers or reduce churn.
- Sell certain products more: Your team can only focus on a certain range of harder-to-sell products. However, if your goal is to focus solely on them, you might get some extra sales.
- Establish a positive work environment: The sales incentive plan can also serve to create a motivating and positive environment at work, inspiring salespeople to give their best. Here we give you the steps to create a positive work environment.
- Improve the quality of customer service: Not all sales come from new customers, but many times success lies in taking care of the people who have already trusted you. Therefore, if customer satisfaction is the priority, your incentive plan should include objectives related to customer service and retention.
- Be the best on the market: Another objective you can strive for is to become the most competitive company on the market. The incentive plan will motivate your sales team to fight for the first position and gain a good market share from competitors.
Examples of successful incentive plans
Now that you know how to create a sales incentive plan, let's look at some examples. Throughout history, many companies have implemented sales incentive plans with outstanding results. Here are a few of them!
IBM Sales Incentive Program
The computer company IBM uses an incentive plan that includes commissions, gifts and recognition for its salespeople. Workers receive rewards based on the value of the sales they make, and top salespeople receive prizes and trips.
Salesforce Sales Incentive Program
Salesforce is another IT company that offers commissions and gifts based on the sales quotas its workers achieve. Additionally, they are also rewarded for every new customer they manage to make. This motivation has caused the company to grow rapidly.
Google Performance Bonus Program
The company Google could not be less and has developed a program in which its employees receive annual rewards, taking into account their contribution to the overall success of the company.
Microsoft Employee Recognition Program
Microsoft has opted for a recognition program in which it provides prizes, gifts and public recognition to those employees who have demonstrated effort in the areas in which they work.
Now you know how to make a sales incentive plan that is effective for this department of your company. Take a look at our website and try our free demo!
