Is Cash King When It Comes To Sales Incentives?

Every sales person I have ever met wants to make as much money as possible with their time in the company. After all, that’s what they’re there for. To make money for themselves as well as for the company. It’s a give and take role.

Over the years as I have stated in earlier posts, I have worked for many companies. Some only had cash bonuses while others only had non cash bonuses. I can tell you that cash worked for me at the time. I managed to save a deposit for a house in only six months with the bonus I earned when we reached our budget every month. The draw back off course was that in this country anyway, a cash bonus gets taxed. Depending on the tax rate, you would be lucky to walk away with 75% or sometimes just over half of the bonus paid. In effect, you are sharing your hard earned bonus with the tax man. Hardly an incentive then! Cash can be great but it’s not something you can look back on and remember. Most sales people will tell you that they spend their cash bonuses on bills, nights out or on something they use and forget. So, you as the manager are responsible for your staff’s motivation. What are some other ways to motivate sales people?

There are many non cash incentives that have worked for my teams over the years. The best one was a pat on the back saying “well done and thanks for all your hard work.” You will be surprised how well that works if you haven’t already tried it. Off course it has to be deserved not just said for the sake of it. Another one is sitting down with your team at one of your regular sales meetings and ask them what motivates them and what kinds of bonuses they would like to receive for reaching their targets. I can guarantee that most will say they don’t want a cash bonus. When I did this with my team once, the list they cam up with was awesome. It included the following: having their birthdays off (paid off course), gift vouchers from a large department store or boutique stores of their choice, movie tickets or gold class tickets, a weekend away, luxury hire car for the weekend, hot air ballooning, helicopter rides. The list was only limited by their imaginations. These are experiences they got to enjoy and remember for awhile where as paying a bill with their hard earned bonus, was a bit of a let down. Why not let every team member set their own bonus to work towards. As a manager you need to motivate people and who knows what motivates people better than those people themselves?

For you to be an effective manager in a sales or non sales environment means hitting targets or budgets. To do that you need motivated people. To motivate people, they need to know what’s in it for them. For most, their employment package is not enough, it’s a starting point. Commissions are great, but if you go that extra mile for you team, you will earn their respect and they will work hard to reach your targets which in turn will put you in good stead with management above you. It’s a win win scenario. Have that meeting with your team ASAP.

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