Sep 27, 2010
Miami, Not Money, Motivates Sales Team
When executives at Yodle, an online advertising provider that works with local businesses in some two dozen markets, announced a two-month sales contest last year in which the top team would receive $6,000, New York Sales Manager Chris DePatria made a decision that helped his team come out on top: he changed the cash to a group outing to South Beach.
“At a certain point, the money doesn’t mean as much to these guys,” DePatria says. Before announcing the contest, he researched airfare to South Beach and the cost of hotel rooms for his 13 salespeople and determined that $6,000 would cover it. Instead of simply announcing the challenge in an e-mail, DePatria put together a PowerPoint presentation with pictures of South Beach and the contest was as good as over. His team finished far ahead of the other two dozen Yodle sales teams scattered around the U.S.
Yodle Sales Manager Chris DePatria (seated) pumps his team up with fun non-cash awards like a traveling trophy, a championship belt and a cozy office chair that rotate among top performers.
It’s a formula that DePatria follows to drive performance throughout the year. His reps work hard to earn large commissions; he pushes them with promises of sand, surf and something as simple as a comfortable office chair and a towering trophy that rotates to the highest salesperson for any given week.
Sales managers across all sorts of industries have discovered that money isn’t their most powerful motivational tool. Instead, they’re relying on the psychology of hedonistic rewards-aka non-cash incentives-to change behavior. The science behind why hedonistic rewards work is thorough, but the short explanation is that people will put forth more effort in pursuit of a tangible product, a trip or an experience than they would to earn the cash equivalent of the same reward.
Sales managers at Sears Optical observed this last spring when they launched the Suntastic Run for the Sun sales challenge to kick off the prescription sunglasses season. Store managers, regional sales managers and regional vice presidents had the opportunity to earn a 60-second dash through a warehouse of high-end merchandise and grab as much as they could. Participants competed against their own baseline numbers from the same sales period a year earlier. Ultimately, 30 store managers, seven regional sales managers and a regional VP earned the warehouse dash, which took place in June at Minneapolis-based BI, a performance improvement company that has worked with Sears Optical for several years.
“Our stores are naturally competitive and they love our brands, but we wanted to focus our associates on key drivers of sales,” explains Robin Wilson, senior director of store experience for Sears Optical. The top performers were astounded by the event and returned to their colleagues raving about it. “Now, the word is out and we’re going to have an even higher level of engagement the next time we run this,” Wilson says.
Published In: SalesforceXP Magazine
