Good article here from Selling Power’s Incentives newsletter – Big Motivation at Small Companies.  The topic is how to run effective incentive campaigns when you aren’t a Fortune 500 company.

Still, as a recent article in Incentive Magazine points out, smaller companies do enjoy a few incentives-related benefits compared with their larger counterparts. For one, with most of the company€™s employees occupying the same workspace, communicating with the entire team at the same time poses few logistical problems. Also, this sort of intimacy means that whoever is planning the rewards will likely have a better idea what specific prizes will motivate the targeted participants. Plus, as the article points out, smaller organizations can afford to experiment and try new approaches to motivate the salespeople in ways Fortune 500 companies would automatically shy away from.

Quite true.  And this understanding of employee’s reward structure can be enhanced (or should I say defined) by assessing them.  Understanding an employee’s rewards along with their motivators provides managers with the insight to coach and motivate them in their own valuable terms.

The 4 points from the article:

1. Think long-term

2. Go easy on the administration

3. Fairness counts

4. Spending money isn€™t everything

Specifically from point 4:

What you may lack in program budget you can make up for with imagination. For example, in a small, tight-knit office, peer recognition is a powerful tool.

A very good point, but one that won’t work if you force it upon a salesperson who is not rewarded by status and recognition.  This fact is why we consistently recommend assessing existing salespeople before launching new incentive programs.

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