Sales Incentives: Average Salespeople Are the Hidden Gems of Every Sales Department

Throughout my long-term work on sales staff reward models, many company directors have sought advice on how to motivate poor salespeople to become good: ‘We want to create a reward system that will boost sales by improving the results of poor salespeople and bringing them closer to the best. Now we have a quarter of salespeople who do not reach even 70 percent of the plan.’ To such wishes, I often respond that the reward system is not a magic wand. A new sales reward system will not solve all the difficulties in sales, and it certainly will not improve the results of the worst salespeople.

There are many reasons why salespeople do not achieve the desired results. Some lack professional knowledge and are not competent interlocutors for customers. Many lack sales skills. Some are not motivated. Some salespeople have personal problems. Some actually do not want to work in sales but have not found a job in their profession. Among them, there are certainly a few lazy ones. The reward system will not solve any of these reasons.

Tools for the Poor

In countries with legally regulated minimum wage, you cannot even encourage lazy salespeople to leave the company with a reward system. Namely, due to a certain minimum wage, you cannot introduce a system based on 100 percent variable pay, and there are always those for whom that is enough, along with the well-known saying from this region: ‘You can never pay me so little as I can work so little.’

For so-called C-salespeople, who do not meet expectations, there are other tools and measures through which we can implement significant changes: professional and sales training, personal assistance and support, mentoring, reassignment to another job, etc. The target groups for the new payment and reward system are average and top salespeople, the so-called sales stars.

Sensitive Stars

Every company has a salesperson or several who achieve excellent results and exceed the expectations of their managers. These are competent and highly motivated salespeople. They work more than eight hours a day, often on weekends. They seek business and sales opportunities everywhere. Although we would like it to be different, we cannot expect these salespeople to sell much more than before due to the new payment and reward system.

Their results are not limited by their motivation but by external factors such as market conditions, the number of customers, the size of the area they cover, administrative tasks, etc. Since there are few top salespeople and they have limited opportunities to increase sales, we cannot expect that a better reward system will significantly improve the company’s sales results. Therefore, the payment and reward system for sales stars must focus on other areas, such as finding ways to bind them to the company, removing barriers to higher earnings, or enabling their influence on the company’s plans and operations.

The Key in the Hands of Managers

In developing the pay model, the phrase ‘golden mean’ takes on its true meaning. Average salespeople are the real hidden gems of every sales department. If we create the reward system correctly, this target group can bring the greatest sales growth. There are two levers for this. Many average salespeople are capable but not motivated. Unmotivated ones work on autopilot for eight hours a day and wait to go home. If we design a good payment and reward system and have a sales manager who knows how to direct and motivate it, we can expect a significant increase in the sales results of these salespeople.

Most salespeople fall into this target group. Therefore, even if they improve their sales results slightly, it will have a greater impact on the company’s overall result due to the large number of salespeople. That is why the greatest attention in developing the reward system should be devoted to how to design it to influence greater motivation and activation of average salespeople.

If we have approached the new payment and reward system for salespeople correctly, we can significantly increase the company’s sales, primarily at the expense of better results from average salespeople. In doing so, we must not forget that the payment and reward system is a tool in the hands of the sales manager. They must use this system to motivate and direct salespeople so that these better results come to life in practice.