Article  Use Sales Incentive Programs to Improve Your Business There was a time when a company could count on an employee’s loyalty and dedication to the job.  Simply offering decent pay and job security was enough to ensure that your employees would not only come to work happy, but would also work their hardest for you, doing everything they could to make sure that the company was thriving.  While this is still the case to some degree today, companies are finding that they need to do more to make sure that their employees are happy and working at their most efficient level.  Thus sales incentive programs are a great way to not only increase morale, but also to increase sales. Sales incentive programs come in all shapes and sizes and any company can find one that works for its budget and staff.  With a sales incentive program, you are offering your employees even more reason to try their hardest to increase company sales and also to buy from the very company they work for. A tried and true sales incentive program is one that is competition based.  Offering prizes, such as merchandize or gift cards for the most sales within a certain period of time, can create a morale-building competitive feel to your sales team, allowing them to try their hardest to outshine their co-workers.  While this may sound like the opposite of morale building, by pushing your sales members to do their best in order to win the challenge, you will find that they will have fun with the competition, often learning sales tips from each other in a bid to win. You can also use self competition-based incentive programs where the members of your sales team try to increase their sales from the previous week, month or fiscal year.  This way they are actually working hard at self improvement and can help each other with sales techniques.  By offering weekly and monthly challenges, you can keep your sales team focused and working hard every day.  A larger, yearly reward will help them to keep yearly sales goals in mind. The best sales incentive programs aren’t just for those on your team that sell the best; rewarding those sales associates who are trying hard to improve their skills will make them want to improve even more. Everyone likes to feel like they are doing a good job, even if they aren’t necessarily the top sales person on the floor. Rewarding an honest effort will also help keep company morale at a high.  Include unplanned rewards in your sales incentive program to keep your staff on their toes and always working at their highest level.  Surprising your staff with a great prize unexpectedly will help them to stay focused and selling. When choosing the rewards for your sales incentive program, try to cater them to what your sales staff would want.  If the rewards aren’t something that the sales team would use, any sales incentive programs that you put into place will fail. Offer a selection of store merchandise, if it makes sense.  You can safely assume that if they are working within your store, they use the merchandise they are selling.  Letting them choose from several options is also a good idea.  Gift cards and gift certificates to local restaurants are also good rewards to offer.  An even better idea is to ask your staff what they would like to see offered up as rewards.  This way you will be guaranteed that they will work hard to win the rewards. Category Business Author WOA Member Add To Favorites Print This Article Email Article To A Friend Post Comments   Rate This Article (3) 1 - Poor2345 - Good678910 - Excellent Added On 21 May 2009