Sales Incentives: $5,200 to Keep your Inside Sales Team (extra) Motivated in 2012

December 6, 2011

$100 bucks a week… $5,200 for the year.

In the grand scheme of things, we are not talking lot of money when it comes to the spark (i.e. enthusiasm) that this sum can ignite in sales organization, not to mention opportunity pipeline.

It’s December and your senior management team is likely wrapping up the final details of the 2012 budget. My recommendation:

Make sure that a weekly inside sales spiff  (“Sales Performance Incentive Fund”)  is factored into the equation

Obviously, you are paying your inside sales reps (ie. Lead Qualification Reps, Lead Generation Reps — there are many names for these non-closing opportunity/appointment generators)  base and bonus based on their performance (check out Brian Zimmerman’s post on compensating lead generation reps for some best practices).  But honestly, what’s better than leaving the office on a Friday evening with 100 bucks in your pocket to treat a group of friends to dinner?  Or having an extra bill in your pocket around this time of year to buy Christmas presents? I’m dreaming of that extra cash right now as I write this!

If you are hiring the right profile for your inside sales team, you’ve likely got a competitive and driven bunch on your hands. They want money. They want to win. They want to prove themselves and be successful.  Holding weekly competitions and rewarding your best performers with cash sales incentives adds some spice to a job that sometimes feels monotonous and thankless.

Some of the more successful inside sales teams that I am working with in OpenView’s investment portfolio are in fact hosting weekly spiffs for the inside sales teams to keep motivation and competition high. Inside Sales can be a tough gig.  Countless calls and rejections, all in the name of finding that diamond in the rough qualified opportunity for your sales team to close and reap the rewards.

So why not throw a little spiff money into the mix and get the sales team excited about their efforts?

Spiffs shouldn’t be overly complicated. Here are a few simple examples of weekly cash spiff criteria for lead qualification/inside sales teams:

  • Whoever gets the most qualified opportunities for the week/whoever hits the goal of X opportunities
  • Whoever has the most conversations with decision makers over the course of the week
  • Whoever has the best overall stats for the week – opportunities created, conversations, calls

Final note: Make a Thing Out of It

Don’t just quietly hand out the cash at the end of the week. The inside sales manager should give updates as to where the team stands against the goal (end of day Tuesday and end of day Thursday perhaps) — who’s at the top, and who’s at the bottom. This will build up that sense of competition over the course of the week and make the cash reward on Friday that much more of an honor.