Comparison between Incentive Sales Reps and Political Presidential Candidates

It’s only the beginning of March, and frankly I’m already sick of the presidential politics.  This time around it seems like it is even nastier than in the past with more distortions of fact, half-truths, innuendoes, backbiting, misleading and negative advertising and all kinds of endless pundit drivel.  Wouldn’t it be nice if in every conversation or discussion or debate we had a little box on every TV screen or news media article where a “truth icon” would appear on every statement made that would immediately show whether the statement was absolutely true, an out and out lie or something taken out of context?  Wishful thinking?  Probably! 

As I watch all of these word games I’m taken back to so many selling situations of the past in our industry where the truth was never a necessity to make the sale, and smoke and mirrors pricing was the gold standard for the incentive sales reps that made a substantial living on clouding the issue with unsuspecting buyers.  It seemed that the more you told the truth, the more the buyer didn’t believe you and the more you lost the business.  It seemed that buyers bought what they wanted to buy, with little consideration of their own facts.  The incentive program graveyard is loaded with programs that cost a lot of money, produced nothing for the client and put more of the program budget into the hands of the award supplier than the participants of the program.  It’s was not uncommon for a program buyer to pay $500 for an award that could be purchased at retail for $200, or spend a million dollars on a travel program that might motivate 2-5% of their participant base and convince themselves that truly 100% of the participants were motivated to improve their performance.  Unfortunately that still happens today.   

So can the incentive reps of today be compared to all those presidential candidates who will say and do about anything to get elected?  Sure they can, and they do.  But it’s not really their fault that they do it, they‘re just trying to make a living the best way they know and the whole truth be damned when it lies in the way of making the sale.  

Does the fault lies with the buyer?  Should they be in a position to buy incentives before they understand all the nuances and principles of the award industry?  Should they know when to use what kinds of awards at what times and in what variation to motivate performance pending all the facts at their disposal?  Should know exactly what they want to accomplish and how they intend to measure that achievement before they begin?  Should they know how to communicate their objectives and use communications to bolster their efforts?  If they are going to buy fulfillment should they know what companies are the best at fulfilling that need?  If they don’t really have a clue of how to structure their program should they know what consultants to call upon to provide that assistance?  Unfortunately, in all too many cases the buyers don’t.  And in those cases they end up with programs that wind up in the incentive graveyard mentioned above. 

The industry at one time had many terrific consultative types who had the expertise to guide clients in the right direction.  Those kinds of folks, like our friend PaulHebert of i2i who still provides that expertise, are unfortunately harder and harder to find today.  “Caveat Emptor”, or Let the Buyer Beware” is a saying that has been around for years.  It applies in spades to buyers of incentive award programs, but it shouldn’t preclude them for knowing all they can about what it is that they are buying.   If they don’t want to take the time to learn they will be fair game for those incentive reps who revel in the game and “truthfulness” of presidential politics.

Poorly Developed Goals Will Hurt Your Incentive Program

If you have used incentive award programs, are using incentive award programs, or are planning to use incentive award programs, this postby Paul Hebert of i2i Incentive Intelligence is a must read.   

The fundamental challenge for anyone designing incentive awards is to have a program that will produce results.  The essential element to achieve this challenge is to establish the proper goals for your participants.  Then and only then can you spend the time necessary to determine the right rules to make it all work successfully.

When considering what types of goals to establish, there are three different types of goals that you should consider:

1. Focus on the behaviors that you want to influence to reach the outcome

2. Focus on what you do want to achieve vs. what you don’t want to achieve

3. Focus on specific details to achieve, not a vague generalized outcome 

Unfortunately, there are many incentive program planners who fail to understand these types, and do not structure programs that have the best chance of success.  Programs designed with poor goals are legion.  We see them all the time and they keep on coming.  They make the outcome not the behavior the goal, are not specific and detail exactly they want to achieve and are very universal  in their definition.   

The “prize” you use in your award program won’t drive lasting results unless you take the time to structure your program properly.  And worse, when goals are poorly assigned, you run the risk of spending large budgets with little to show for it.    

Simple Employee Recognition

The following ideas on praising and recognizing employees were stolen shamelessly from this post on CBS Money Watch written by Jeff Haden.  Jeff has ghost written many non-fiction books for some of the smartest CEOs in business and we believe has a prescient understanding of employee engagement and recognition.  You can view his works at www.blackbirdinc.com

Jeff’s premise is not to create a special program to praise your employees, you don’t need one.  And we wholeheartedly agree!   Too many companies in the award industry think you need those elaborate electronic programs with points allocated for certain employee performance improvement.  They hold the points in a bank account and then redeem them for the latest espresso machine or electronic gadget of the moment, all of which are usually way overpriced.  Using simple recognition as outlined here will cost you a lot less money and often give you a lot more recognition where it will do the most good. 

Try some of these practical and simple steps to make sure you are giving your employees the recognition they deserve: 

“Treat employees like snowflakes.” 

Everyone is different; recognize each in the way that gives them the greatest impact. 

“Never wait”

Recognizing as soon after the performance has occurred is never too soon.  When you wait you lose the impact of the recognition. 

“Be specific.”

Telling someone they did a great job without telling them will often fall on deaf ears and you will lose the moment.  When you’re specific it tells the employee that you are paying attention and you know what they did and they’ll also know what exactly to do the next time.   

“Be sincere.”

Insincerity will hurt more than help and will be taken negatively.  Don’t waste your time if your not going to be sincere.   

“Leave out the ‘constructive’ stuff.”

Don’t use recognition as a “teaching moment”….ever.  You greatly lessen the effect of the recognition in the first place. 

“Be proactive.”

Focus more on employees doing things right than doing them wrong. 

“Try the “just because” flowers approach.”

A spring bouquet that is a surprise often has a bigger impact than Valentine’s Day roses.  A surprise visit from the CEO to thank someone can be priceless.

“Always seek a balance.”

It’s easy to recognize the best, but look for reasons to spread the wealth.  A little encourage to an average or poor performer can help them become your best performers.   

“Recognizing effort and achievement is self-reinforcing: When you do a better job of recognizing employees they tend to perform better — giving you even more achievements to recognize.”

                                                                                                                                        Jeff Haden

Another Reason Gift Cards Make Great Awards

We are often asked by prospective customers why we feel that gift cards make the best employee awards.  The simple reasons are that they provide the best value and choice than any other merchandise award, mainly because with gift cards you can get just about any kind of merchandise available in the incentive industry, but your choices of just the right one will be dramatically greater, and the cost will be dramatically less.

In our daily surfing of the net on the subject of awards we come across many articles, this one, giving us another reason why gift cards make great awards, caught our eye.  It relates a new shopping event for the after holiday season designed to entice those who received gift cards for Christmas to come in and spend them on a certain weekend…the GCW or Gift Card Weekend Sale.  Many partner companies have used this concept to drive incremental sales in January.  The gift card recipients can redeem their gift cards from participating retail partners and receive extra value through special deals posted on the GCW website that will be offered that weekend only.  

As a very large percent of the incentive and recognition awards budgets are paid out to participants at the end of the year, having sales like the GCW actually increases the value of the award to the participant.  If they earned a $100 gift card, it could be worth $125 to $150 on these sales.

For years, the traditional merchandise award companies have used “sale” pricing on a few of their items to entice participant redemption, unfortunately most of the awards in the typical incentive catalogs are so overpriced that even by offering a discount the prices are still quite high compared to the sales that a gift card holder can take advantage of. 

If you want to give your participants the items they really want, let them have the gift card that they want.  Let they choose from over 500 of the most popular gift cards in the country by giving them the Award of Choice card.