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Training/Incentives/Meetings for Sales Team Leaders
FEATURESTORY
The Accelerator:
Workplace recognition can bridge the gap between where your team is now and where it can be.
It's a formula that's anything but secret. So why do some companies pull it off while others flounder and eventually fade away? What separates those businesses that field strong teams year after year from the ones that struggle to stay alive?
Authors Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, both consultants with the Salt Lake City-based recognition provider O.C. Tanner Co., maintain that there are four basic management characteristics that create a foundation for business success: goal-setting, communication, trust and accountability. The secret ingredient, as much as there is one, is recognition, or what Gostick and Elton call “carrots.”
“When recognition is applied to the Basic Four of good management, it serves as an accelerator of employee performance and engagement,” they state. (See “Accelerate Excellence” on page 18.)
The two men have written a series of best-selling books on the power of recognition in the workplace, the latest of which is The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their Employees, Retain Talent, and Drive Performance (Free Press, 2007). In it, Gostick and Elton share research – some sponsored by O.C. Tanner and some from associations such as the Society of Human Resource Management – that supports their belief that once a solid management foundation is in place, nothing promotes improved workplace performance as effectively as recognition.
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What Sets You Apart?
Good leaders complete the circle by recognizing employees who have exceeded expectations, Gostick said in a recent telephone interview. “It works for sales managers just as it does for a manager who's running the loading dock or managing a team of service people.”
Yet many sales managers continue to reward top performers with cash on top of already-hefty commissions and leave it at that. It's an approach that leaves a lot to be desired, Gostick says – and one that may come back to haunt them. “Most sales managers know that compensation isn't a differentiator for them. Unless an organization somehow is able to pay exceptionally better than the competition, which is rare, most salespeople can make similar money elsewhere. If somebody offers an extra percentage point or two of commission, they're gone,” he says. “It's the intangibles – noticing the little things that your employees are doing to make your organization great – that truly give you the edge.”
It's a message that comes as no surprise from someone who's in the recognition business. But Pepper Fernandez of Solutionz has nothing to gain by promoting employee recognition and yet she champions the cause as enthusiastically as anyone. Solutionz has used a sales incentive program for the past 212 years that allows the company's 18 salespeople to earn points that can be redeemed for name-brand merchandise. Fernandez and her brother/owner Kirk were so pleased with the results that they created a similar program for their service and administrative divisions last year.
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“It's a pat on the back. It's nice for someone who has knocked it out of the ballpark to get a plasma TV or a digital camera,” Fernandez says.
Matching Incentives With Objectives
But she's quick to emphasize that the company's incentive program is not solely about getting salespeople to “push more boxes.” Solutionz rewards points to salespeople who are consistent from month-to-month and quarter-to-quarter. A salesperson who waits for the big hit at the end of a quarter won't be rewarded as well as one who produces smaller deals over a longer period of time.
Solutionz also rewards those salespeople who provide the best customer service, which is not directly tied to generating revenue, as well as the salesperson who brings in the most customer service renewals.
“We are in the business of customer service, which I think is at an all-time low in business in general,” Fernandez says. “Our customer retention truly comes from the fact that we take care of people. We don't stop until we've felt like the customer has been treated as well as they can be. We don't care only about how many units we sell. We care about how many of those customers buy service from us again the following year, or how many of them come back to us to revamp their video system or add another one.”
Gostick and Elton call it “purpose-based recognition.” Simply stated, it means making sure that you reward actions and outcomes that align with your company's goals and ethics.
“It seems like such an obvious thing, but rare is the company that we go into that has a cohesive, strategic plan that recognizes employees and also supports long-term corporate objectives,” says Gostick. “Recognition often is willy-nilly: Every department does their own thing and there's no consistency between departments. Purpose-based recognition aligns with an individual's goals as well as the company's.”
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See also in the article: The Accelerator
Supporting Those Who Support Sales
Conferencing Equipment Manufacturer Makes Noise With Non-Cash Incentives
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