Experience has shown that Channel Sales Incentives are a great way to get the Channel working for you. And running a channel sales incentive should benefit all involved: the sales individual, the sales organisation (Partner) and either the Distributor or Vendor organisation running the incentive.
Sales incentives are designed to maximise opportunity, we are not looking to reward sales already within the pipeline, but to drive, specifically, two main sales goals:
- Generate more deal registrations
- Shortening the sales cycle
By definition, a sales incentive is ‘money or a reward offered to salespeople for selling a particular amount of goods or services.’ But, getting the Channel to work for you, is not just about sales – there are other things to consider!
What behaviour are we trying to influence?
When you recognise your sales teams’ or individual’s performance, it can improve their motivation and morale, increase vendor brand buy-in, encourage learning (more product knowledge) and drives sales teams to close deals, faster.
The right incentive balances revenue with creating lasting behaviours. With the right combination and detailed planning, channel sales incentives will enable your teams to exceed your revenue targets and change behaviours for the better. You might consider the following.
- Enablement – Encouraging sales teams to complete enablement training. This benefits all partners of the programme, as the team can sell to prospects in the most effective way.
- Learning and Education – This will help your teams secure better relationships within the Channel as well as improve upon sales pitches. The more knowledge they have, the better armed they will be when they are trying to close a deal.
- Brand Based – Creating brand buy-in and overcoming resistance from prospects.
- Pipeline Based – Aside from committed deals, which ones are low-hanging fruit? Encouraging sales individuals to regularly evaluate deals in the pipeline and identify ones that could be brought forward. Sales support from the vendor can possibly turn pipeline deals into reality.
Driving the right behaviour in Channel is key but how can it be done?
Running a successful channel sales incentive takes time, planning, organisation, and more time. Gone are the days when you simply task sales teams with selling ‘more’ and offering them their favourite tipple at the end of the month – what is needed now, is to drive lasting behaviours!
Before you can do that, you need to ask some questions…
- How many people are likely to take part?
- How many organisations?
- Across which regions?
- What do you want to achieve – what does good look like?
- What budget will you need?
- How will you promote the incentive?
- How will participants be able to sign up/register?
- How will you communicate progress?
- How much time will I need to invest to make this a success?
Once you have answered these questions, you can start planning your channel sales incentive. To assist you, find out more about the 12 components necessary to make sure your channel sales incentive campaign is successful.
