The Incentive Trip – A Few Thoughts and Tips on How to Motivate Your Team

Why you need an incentive trip

If you are anything like me, you have spent a long time pondering how to motivate unproductive employees to work harder. Hopefully you have stopped doing that. According to several studies, it is more productive to invest your time in your top performers. Peter Drucker told us long ago that it takes far more effort to bring mediocre colleagues up to a standard level of performance than it does to bring your best people to excellence. So how do you create the incentives that motivate your entire team to perform even better? One option would be an incentive trip. In what follows, we will look at options beyond the financial side that lead to peak performance in your sales team or any other team. The focus of this article is on sales staff, but the tips listed here can be applied to other areas too. I have divided my discussion into three areas: leadership, empowerment and rewards.

Revenue requires leadership

As the title of Robert Ramsey's book puts it, you can lead, follow, or get out of the way. Motivated people will follow you and your mission if you show them your motivation and the reasons behind it. The bigger the goal, the greater the motivation your employees need in order to meet their goals (and yours). That takes a great deal more than a slogan on the wall. You have to formulate and present your mission persuasively and convey the benefits to the sales department. Next, you need a product or service that creates value for your customers and fits the market. Nothing demotivates a salesperson more than working with products or services that do not fit the market. Just ask the American car salesmen who were forced to sell nothing but left-hand-drive cars to the Japanese in the 1980s. Third, you need a sales system. With a clear, easy-to-understand overview oriented around customers and benefits, your salespeople can see exactly what is expected of them. They learn which questions to ask, practise role-plays and gain an overview of where things currently stand. Finally, you have to be a role model in behaviour and performance. Lead by example, not by decree.

Creating incentives through skills

People love doing things they are good at. And there is always something new to learn and improve, especially in sales. Just as Steve Chandler describes on his CD "Live at Santa Monica", you don't need to go looking for new techniques or areas yourself. Your top performers will hungrily and passionately devour anything that boosts their success rate. You could, for example, offer training in areas such as self-confidence, solution selling, time management or listening. Support your employees with extra time and/or financial contributions towards such professional development. The desire to grow professionally is completely natural. You don't need to instil it. Just don't kill it!

Now for the rewards

Besides commission payments and bonuses, what else can you offer your people? Here are four options: Visibility For the most part, the important work of your sales staff is carried out away from the office. So give your colleagues (and the office-based team too) the chance to be seen. You can do this, for example, by highlighting good behaviour (also known as "starring"). Note down the behaviour you value on a notice board or whiteboard. Encourage your colleagues to share their best experiences … in front of the whole team. Attention The other day, a top performer (let's call him Tom) came to me and said: "My boss doesn't have time to see me. But I don't blame him. He has so much on his plate." That may well be true, but the healthiest food on that plate ought to be his top performers! Instead, Tom is willing to skip the meal and dine elsewhere. Time The most motivated employees usually don't simply want more free time. So make it clear that you reward performance – not attendance. When your employees reach a milestone, it's up to you to find out what they would like to do with the time. Then let them do it. Energy If time is worth more than money, then energy is worth more than time and money combined. With more energy you can do more. And it gets done better and faster too. Make sure your salespeople eat properly and get enough sleep so they can perform at their best. Your employees often have to deal with rejection. So if you help them recover, they can quickly pick up speed again.

A mental note

Whether it's a gym membership, a meal at a favourite restaurant or a wonderful incentive trip to Mallorca. Do something to keep the energy levels in your department right. Try something new this year! Even if your salespeople claim they prefer money to non-cash rewards, bear in mind the basic psychological rule that non-cash rewards are "guilt-free". Your colleagues "have to" go to Mallorca or to the restaurant. So they won't feel guilty about having "wasted" the bonus. Nor will they reproach themselves over what they "should" have bought instead. And they will remember the incentive trip forever. For more information about bonuses or Mallorca, please get in touch with us.

You can find out more about incentive programmes in our team-building activities in Mallorca.

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