Top Ten Sales Incentives (Besides Cash) Companies Use to Increase Sales Team Performance

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit.
Conrad Hilton

At Value Forward Group, we have consulted with over 240 companies using our Value Forward sales and marketing strategies during the last seven years, and I am often exposed to many team sales incentive plans used by start-ups, mature family run businesses and Global 1000 companies.

Salespeople, by their very nature, are competitive. They are competitive with their personal goals, their sales team's goals, and their individually assigned sales target or quota.

Some of my clients have developed some unusual and rewarding bonuses for individual sales quota success, team sales quota success, and top salesperson of the year.

Money is not everything. Yes, it does motivate but today many management teams are using different options in an effort to stimulate their sales team to greater peak performance. In fact, many success awards are items that salespeople would not buy for themselves because of family commitments (think a Porsche for a spouse with five children).

Top 10 Unusual and Financially Rich Sales
Incentives Our Clients Offer

1. A free Mercedes Benz 500 SL or Porsche 911 for the top salesperson.

2. A free day at a spa for each salesperson who hits their monthly sales quota.

3. Two Super Bowl tickets, airline tickets and hotel suite for the top salesperson of the year.

4. A 2 week vacation for two anywhere in the world up to a $20,000 purchase price -- awarded to the top salesperson with the balance in cash.

5. A weekend for two to a Ritz Carlton Hotel -- if you hit your quarterly sales quota.

6. Choice of a 7 day white water trip vacation for two, a 7 day vacation trip to the Caribbean, or a 7 day all-expense paid trip for two to New York City including Broadway tickets, etc.

7. A 7 day all-expense paid trip for two to the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas in a four room suite and $5,000 spending (or gambling) money.

8. A $100 gift certificate to different restaurants each month a salesperson hits their monthly quota.

9. A 7-foot high trophy for the salesperson of the year with a 2 week all-expense paid trip to a dude ranch for four or trip to Fiji for two.

10. Race car training at the Skip Barber Racing Car School for each salesperson who hits their quarterly sales quota.

So, how does your company's motivational incentives compare? Are you getting a handshake and a plaque at the annual company banquet?

Are some of these incentive offerings over the top?

Not necessarily. The goal of any incentive program, if developed and positioned correctly, is to drive individual and team performance to greater heights of all sales team members. Just giving more money to salespeople often does not stimulate someone to greater success because they will just take the money and pay bills or invest it and see no immediate positive reinforcement.

But by providing a brand new Mercedes Benz 500 SL convertible that costs $100,000 to the top salesperson, it reinforces to the salespeople that if they work hard, they will receive a rare luxury item with which to enjoy their success. And to keep this badge of success, they need to keep working hard or they may lose the car the next year.

The costs to management for these types of incentive programs are usually incremental. You can lease the 500 SL for $2,000 a month, send someone to Vegas with gambling money for $10,000, or buy a 7-foot trophy for $500. But by offering unusual performance awards that are more "demonstratively visible," they tease the rest of the sales team on what they could receive if they just try a little harder.

Imagine, if your firm could increase its sales team quota performance by another 15-20% by offering these types of awards, how much would that be worth to you?

More than ever, the asset value of most companies is not the product or service they sell -- but the strength of the company's sales distribution.

Invest in your value.

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