Getting ready for next year means revising and revamping your incentive programs for your team. Now picking an incentive program can be as complicated as buying your wife a Christmas gift but a good incentive program is custom to your team and something that motivates them not you. Too often we start incentive plans by assuming what people want. Commission, time off, dress down, coffee cards. All of them come from a good intention however, a great incentive plan should include the team’s input as well.
Now you may be saying what kind of leadership strategy is that? A great one. You will be shocked how often the team picks less expensive items but something they are invested in. I was just at an agency in Canada and the session we ran on building an incentive plan shocked me. If they called 100% of renewals (through our AppX Retention Program) for 1 month they wanted to do a group yoga class. I would have never in a million years imagined that. So why not put them in the driver seat of imagining the reward? When they are invested, they will respond.
There are a few keys to building a strong incentive program, and this is where it starts with you. You have to know what you want, you have to have a plan to get there AND you have to be reasonable on a month by month goal. So if you want to sell $1 million in new business this year that’s $83,000 per month OR $19,230 per week OR $3,846 per work day. Now break that down per person. It makes sense when you break it down. It become real when you have a plan to get there.
Sales is one goal but we always recommend a three prong goal for every department:
- 1 special project: email gathering, data clean up, Facebook fans etc. It can be ANYTHING you know your agency needs that you have been struggling to obtain
- Retention Goal
- Sales Goal
That’s it… but it’s a trifecta of awesome.
Now your incentive program needs to be BOTH team based and individual based.
Why both? For some people their motivation to hit the goal is only not letting their team down. So if they don’t need the gas gift card or don’t value it they will make a personal decision to not hit the goal. However, if the team will loose they will step up. Now along the same line, if there are rockstars in the group they deserve individual rewards and recognition.
Think of a monthly team goal with individual opportunity.
Now you have to track it at least bi-weekly. The more you check in on it the more you will hit the goal. You can’t be a slow cooker, instead you need to be a grill master! When you set the incentive plan automatically book a meeting with your team every 2 weeks to review the numbers. This way, like clockwork, everyone’s eyes are on the numbers and the prize.
The bottom line is a great incentive plan is all fueled by leadership. If yours is flat then hit the restart button. If you need a great strategy to hit the goal, call us!
