In nearly every sales force you have three kinds of team members. You have your Rock Stars, the average performers, and the Laggers. And your success as a business is dependent upon working with (or not working with) the right groups with the right amount of time to grow your sales.
1. Rock Stars: These are the folks that are self-starters. They are driven. This group takes very little of your time to motivate and (most of the time) they are actually pretty low maintenance. There is not a need or want of any hand-holding (for the most part) because they don’t have time for that. They are working to get the next sale.
Sometimes they are so easy to deal with you might ignore them. Don’t.
2. Laggers: As one sales manager once told me, “You can’t push a rope.” Many organizations make the mistake of spending a lot of time with the Laggers. They are often very nice guys and gals (that’s why they were hired). And the tendency is, we think that if we “coach them up” they can turn into Rock Stars. Most of the time, this is fantasy. Raise your hand if this has happened to you…everyone!
3. Average Performers: The fact is, most of your sales team falls into this category. These are good sales members that have moments of “rock star status.” They just don’t perform at this level consistently. They very well could be “rock stars” but they are not…yet. One of the jobs of an entrepreneur, sales manager, or sales guru, is to raise the level of these team members.
But how do you thank and appreciate the Rock Stars and incentivize the rest? That is, literally, the million-dollar question. Let’s take a look at a few options…
1. Status Award: When it comes to affecting sales members’ behavior, a great option is to create Status awards they “wear.” This allows them to be reminded of their accomplishment nearly every day. It also shows the Average Performers who to model their behavior after. When thinking of a status award, think of the Green Jacket that is given to the winner of the Masters. What are some other ideas for status awards? Think of doing a cool custom watch. The average person looks at their watch more than 10 times a day. Make it a fashion statement and you have something they are proud to wear. Not a fan of a watch? No problem. What about a custom ring or a special shirt. You get the idea.
Make it cool and it will get the attention you desire.
2. Fun Award: Sometimes you can really have fun with the celebration! If you create a contest or incentive around lifestyle and the fun that success can bring, you might create awards that celebrate that. What do I mean, think about toting around a very nice Coleman cooler to every event this summer with an award message. What a great way to remind your team of their success (and get people to ask about it!).
3. Public Awards: Another way to make sure your sales team knows how they are doing is to create an award program that is a very public display of accomplishment. Read more on how to really do this right here. But when you create a public display, you can really give your sales team a way to showcase their own accomplishments to everyone that walks in their office! The other cool effect of these awards is that it tells all future customers that they are dealing with a Rock Star…and we all want that. If you want to dig deeper on learning how to create a program to help grow sales, just contact us here and we will reach out to you. In addition, you can shop online for other ideas here.
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