What are sales incentives?

You may have recently gamified your sales team, or you’re thinking about doing it, and you’re just not sure which sales incentives will generate the greatest ROI in terms of increasing employee engagement and productivity levels. You probably already know that sales associates perform their best when they have an incentive, but which incentives are the best?

In this article, we’ll look at some exciting sales incentives that you can include in your sales gamification program. We will go over what a sales incentive is, why you should offer one, and we’ll take a closer look at some of the prizes and rewards that have proven to be effective at motivating sales teams to perform their best.

What is a sales incentive?

A sales incentive is a prize or reward that you offer to teammates who perform well and achieve or exceed their sales targets. By offering valuable incentives, your sales team will be inspired to work their hardest in order to win a prize; and by gamifying your sales team, you can turn the whole process into an exciting, fun work environment fostering a culture of high-performance where team members feel valued, recognized and driven to succeed.

What are the best sales incentives to offer?

Let’s go over some of the best sales incentives that are known to generate a positive return on your sales gamification investment.

1. Monetary incentives

Monetary incentives include things like cash bonuses, temporary pay increases, higher commissions, and other such considerations. Without a doubt, monetary rewards are one of the best motivators, and offering cash rewards to those team members who make the most sales, is a great way to increase your teams’ performance.

2. Physical prizes

In addition to offering monetary awards, consider coming up with sales challenges that reward successful team members with physical prizes like electronics, appliances, or gift cards. For example, you could award a gift card to the first person to make a sale today, or the person who closes the most deals today, or both. Maybe the person with the most sales this month wins an iPad or a Camera; these sorts of prizes bring out the competitive nature in people, but in a good way, in the way that makes good sales teams great.

3. Digital services

The digital services category encompasses a wide array of different potential sales incentives that are not physical in nature; these sorts of incentives include things like:

• Streaming video subscriptions
• Music streaming subscriptions
• Audiobooks & e-Book downloads
• Online training courses
• Software

Pretty much anything that you can’t spend, hold, or do is a digital service or a virtual product, and this type of sales incentive can be surprisingly effective at motivating your team; the ROI is also favorable due to the relatively low cost of digital and virtual prizes.

4. Leisure incentives

Leisure incentives include things like paid personal time off, extra-long weekends, additional vacation days, and so on. Most people cherish and value their time spent with family and friends, so by offering them something they already value, you will be incentivizing your team members to perform well.

There are also larger sales incentives that can fall into the category of leisure incentives, such as an all-inclusive vacation for two, or a cruise, for the person with the most sales that year, etc. Even a weekend getaway is a fantastic incentive that will inspire your team to become more committed, engaged, and successful.

Summary

Offering sales incentives to your team is a fantastic way to increase their performance and generate more sales and more revenue. By gamifying your sales team and offering valuable rewards, such as cash and prizes to those who complete fun sales objectives and maintain positive KPIs and performance metrics, you can set your team up for success while inspiring growth and a results-oriented atmosphere.