Need sales? Use an increasingly effective sales incentive tool

Gift cards have transformed the corporate market for rewards and recognition. Convenience, ease of use and administration, and the range of choice it provides recipients are the attributes most often mentioned by harried sales managers and incentive program administrators who use them.

It's those same positive points, however, that frequently lead to sales managers settling for less than they should from an incentive program that's fueled by gift cards. Co-branding and trophy value capabilities often get overlooked by incentive program planners who use gift cards...

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There's No Secret To Hard Work

Bluntness is not a personality trait that's typically considered refreshing, but it's what people enjoy about speaker, author and cable TV personality Larry Winget (larrywinget.com). Winget frequently reminds people if they're counting on New Age approaches to succeed at work (or life in general), then they're going to be disappointed.

"People are scrambling to find some secret that will help them be more successful," he recently blogged. "In fact, the best-selling book on the planet for the past two years is a book called The Secret. When it comes to this book, The Secret is a total load of crap! Read more...

What Works?  Incentive Products

The surest way to motivate someone to achieve an objective has always been to offer an incentive. Do this and get that. The best incentives are those things recipients desire, but won't buy for themselves.

Check out this collection of guilty pleasures...extravagances that combine highly-desirable brand names with top-notch features. These are the sort of powerful incentives that money alone can't match...

The Unexpected Impact of Unexpected Gifts

Sometimes an after-dinner mint is more than an after-dinner mint.

In their book Yes! 50 Scientfically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive (Free Press, 2008), the authors describe the findings from an experiment by behavioral scientist David Strohmetz and his colleagues. Strohmetz's team conducted an experiment to determine what effect, if any, giving a little candy to restaurant patrons at the end of a meal would have on food servers' tips. When presenting the bill with a single piece of candy for each diner, servers received an increase in tip of 3.3 percent compared to those who didn't receive any candy. In a second set of trials, food servers who gave two pieces of candy for each diner received 14.1 percent more in tips compared to the no-candy condition.

For the third group of diners, the servers first gave one piece of candy to each person at the table. They then turned away from the table as if they were leaving, but then turned back and placed a second mint on the table for each diner. The result: A 23 percent increase in tips!

There was no difference in the amount of gift given in the second two test groups, but there was a difference in the way the gift was given. When the server turned away and then came back to give the diners an extra candy, this was unexpected. By making it seem as if he felt a special liking for that table's diners in particular, the gift of the second candy appeared to be quite personalized.

How can managers make use of this research? It clearly shows the value of giving gifts or rewards that are significant, unexpected and personalized. Of course, using the unexpected tactic every time would be viewed as contrived and eventually would backfire. However, it is possible to use the lessons of the study in an ethical manner. To ensure that any gift or reward that you give is appreciated, make sure to take some time to find out what gift would be significant and personalized, and it's all the better if the recipient doesn't expect it.

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