Category: Sales Incentives

Sales Incentive programs

Design Flaws: Painfully Frustrating

July 19, 2016 by

design flawsDo you notice products or devices that exhibit obvious design flaws?  Could be some tech gadget, household gizmo, or garage tool – when the design is inherently bad, the item is short-lived or practically useless.  This can be painfully frustrating if you purchased it.

Back in 1985 a friend of mine purchased a Yugo – an automobile that was initially imported and marketed in the U.S. as a tremendous value – given its $3990 MSRP.  It was promoted with a 10 year/100,000 mile warranty and free maintenance.  The car had to undergo over 500 design changes to meet U.S. regulations and had a top speed of 86 mph, making it the slowest automobile sold in the country.

The Yugo managed to make several Worst Car lists, including TIME’s 50 Worst Cars of All Time.  As for my friend, he hit a parking lot pothole doing 20 mph and his car was totaled.  Referring to the first paragraph above – this can be painfully frustrating if you purchased it.

In the same context, we spend a great deal of time discussing incentive program design.  Peruse the pages of our website, blog, and collateral material and you will recognize a recurring theme: soundly designed programs for the most part, succeed.  In fact, well-designed programs often grow, mature, and continue to produce favorable results for many years.

This article by Paul Hebert – Take Me to the Pilot discusses the value of good program design.  Citing a recent article on the University of Chicago site, he draws some interesting conclusions about program effectiveness.  As Paul accurately points out-

“More often than not… any discussion on how and why an incentive failed will ultimately come back to a program design flaw.  And for the record – designing incentives isn’t easy. There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of psychology that go into the proper design of a program.”

I encourage you to read his entire article and the referenced study – well worth the time.  Paul sums up his post with this: Rewards work in most business situations.  WHEN DESIGNED APPROPRIATELY.

We agree!  In fact, we so agree with the importance of good program design that we offer our expert consultation at NO CHARGE.  Contact us to discuss your next program – to avoid a painfully frustrating experience.

The Game of Sales

June 30, 2016 by

I’ve always enjoyed the game of baseball.  There’s something about its “simple complexity” that separates it from other ball or stick & ball contests.  Baseball is played at a slower pace than other sports and therefore might seem boring to some.  However, the strategic and tactical adjustments made during the course of the game make… Read more »

Sales and the Performance Arena

June 9, 2016 by

A recent study conducted by the Incentive Research Foundation sheds some interesting light on rewards favored by incentive program participants.  It also describes the relationship and importance of certain “awarding dynamics” to overall program success. The physicality of the award presentation The visibility or notoriety gained by recognition among coworkers The inclusion of executive management… Read more »

Keep Momentum Going

April 12, 2016 by

As you may have read from many of my colleagues, a well-designed program is the foundation to any Incentive Program’s success.  You have designed the perfect key performance indicators, put together a communication strategy, and even finished configuring your site – but what happens after the launch?  How do you maintain strong momentum? During the… Read more »

Effective Sales Training

April 1, 2016 by

I recently read an article entitled How Effective Was That Sales Training which described a strategy of replacing metrics-based sales training with a program of post-training communication between the sales team.  While I agree with the author’s opinion that the post-training communication between the sales team is important, I believe the metrics-based sales training can be… Read more »

A Program Design Dilemma

February 9, 2016 by

Here at QIC we’ve had a recent surge in requests for channel sales programs, and this brings to mind one of the primary program design challenges common to these types of solutions. Channel Sales Background Before discussing that specific challenge, let’s briefly review the characteristics of channel sales programs. First, these programs are typically used… Read more »