Yes we all want to motivate people. Yes we all want people to be successful and create a win/win situation for staff, clients and the company. In the past, I have been an advocate of sales contests. I truly believe that when done the right way, they can motivate behavior.
I was reading a magazine and came across this scenario:
Jensen Supplies holds two sales contest each year to boost revenue and improve morale. To spice things up a bit this time, Jane Werner, Jensen’s sales director, announced the July-through-December contest at the June 1 weekly sales meeting. She went all out and decorated the conference room in an island theme, complete with posters of the South Pacific and tropical music and treats. And on each person’s chair, she left a fake plane ticket to Tahiti—one for each of her 15 salespeople. She told them that in order to exchange the fake ticket for a real one, they would have to reach 125 percent of quota. The reason for such a large prize for a six-month contest, she explained, was that Jensen was introducing three new products and she wanted to ramp up sales as quickly as possible.
Also at the meeting was Dan Woods, Jensen’s marketing rep, who is responsible for creating the sales team’s collateral, presentation materials, and proposals. Strangely, over the course of the next month after the meeting, his performance declined, and he was less social and less available to help the salespeople than he had been. His lunch hours were longer and his workdays got shorter. Werner noticed the change and asked Woods into her office to discuss the situation.
In a nutshell, he was disappointed that, once again, he was excluded from the company’s incentive program because he wasn’t strictly “sales.” Woods said he felt integral to the sales force’s success. In his two years with the company, sales had grown 12 percent per year, whereas revenue had grown only 4 percent per year in the five years before his arrival. He said that perhaps he didn’t fit into the Jensen culture.
Werner was surprised. She hadn’t anticipated that Woods would feel this way. She asked him to give her a few days to work out the problem.
- Has this happened to you?
- What would you do?
I look forward to your comments and suggestions for Jane Werner.
Christine Farber-Cook says:
First, I share the philosophy… “don’t worry about what others are doing” however focus on self. I think smart people see who is working hard, stepping up to the plate and going over and above.
What I find challenging for Jane is that I imagine she does not want to reward bad behavior. Rather than get a bad attitude, Dan should have come to her and talked to her about his thoughts about the matter in a professional way. Know we all know that sometime this is hard to do and we have all probably fallen prey to the dreaded BA (bad attitude) at times. I know I have.
Most important I would (again) look at self….perhaps this as a communications issue and would be asking “why” didn’t Dan come to me (Jane) and just talk about this?
As for solution…I am sure she is measuring ROI on the various programs thus perhaps she could come up with some type of algorithm point system that Dan could also participate in the contest based on contributions to overall sales for the whole. I am not a sales expert, but would be happy to share some of the things I have used in the past.
Good Luck.
Christine
Jeremy Bromberg says:
As always, there are two ways to argue this:
1. Dan has had plenty of opportunity to politely request inclusion, as this wasn’t the first sales contest. He let his dissatisfaction build until he couldn’t control himself.
2. Jane didn’t do a good job of managing – she didn’t anticipate how the rest of the organization might react to her sales team incentive program.
Working in an organization that doesn’t pay commissions or any other sales incentives, I am convinced that it does take the whole company to generate a positive and outwardly competitive spirit. Internal competition, as we see often in sports, results in less collaboration and weaker results. With this in mind, Dan had a right to feel excluded, but could have addressed the situation sooner and more supportively. Jane could have done a better job of incenting the whole organization to boost customer response to the new products.