As long as we’re bucking conventional wisdom about what motivates salespeople, here is a fascinating insight from Steve Richard, co-founder of Vorsight, a “sales effectiveness” firm that helps B2B companies push through the first half of the sales cycle, in large part by landing meetings with key prospects.
Young salespeople like team stretch goals.
Vorsight’s growing sales team is mostly made up of Millennials, a generation that many frustrated Gen X and Baby Boomer managers claim cannot be consistently motivated. Richard (a Gen Xer) disagrees. He runs both short-term spiffs and longer incentive programs, using merchandise and travel as rewards.
He says he has taken his top performers on three-night jaunts to Mexico, the Bahamas and Jamaica for about $800 per participant. “If you gave somebody $800 in cash, they would pay their bills,” Richard says. “This way, we create a memorable experience.”
Richard says the incentive trips end up motivating those who didn’t make the cut to work harder so they can be on the next adventure. (On average, half of his sales team qualifies for each trip.)
What’s most surprising, Richard says, are results of surveys he has conducted internally that show these young salespeople prefer incentive programs that have team goals and individual rewards. The second most popular option is team goals with team rewards (followed by individual goals with individual rewards and individual goals with team rewards).
This debunks the stereotype of salespeople as self-driven individualists. That’s good news for those who buy into the theory that a little teamwork — and team building — goes a long way to boosting morale and increasing retention.
