How much do salespeople care about such individual recognition and awards as a monthly best salesperson award? How much does this recognition actually motivate them to sell better?
“It’s a recognition symbol. If I want to be personally recognized, it’s great, I love it,” observes Vincent W. Kafka. “But my data show that only about 13 percent of salespeople have recognition as their preferred drive.”
And Kafka’s data ought to count. Now head of Effective Learning Systems, he spent 19 years in sales, sales management and coaching with General Electric, mostly on the East Coast. He then trained salespeople at Pacific Gas & Electric in San Francisco for 16 years.
Along the way, the bicoastal Kafka noticed something. Different people seek different rewards from their work. People who receive the rewards they seek are satisfied with their jobs and tend to be more effective at them.
Kafka scrutinized the motivation and performance of nearly 3,000 corporate employees to look for clues. He then took a detailed look at the motivation of 222 salespeople, 58 percent of whom were men, and 42 percent, women.
Salespeople are motivated by five major drives, Kafka discovered. “We all have these five basic drives, but not to the same extent,” he says. “We all need recognition, for example. But for some people, it is their whole life. For others, it is a very minor thing.”
What are the other, more important drives?
Economic security. This was the most important preferred drive in Kafka’s sample. Nearly half, 47 percent, of the salesmen worked primarily for financial incentives. About 27 percent of the saleswomen did. For these people, as Kafka puts it, “money measures all actions.”
How will these salespeople react to an award? “If you tell me I’m salesperson of the month, I’m not that interested,” Kafka speculates. “I’ll say, ‘Give me the money, I’ll buy my own turkey.'”
And these people do not like to waste time at work. They could be out making money.
Control was the second most important drive in Kafka’s sample, the preferred motivator of 18 percent of salesmen and an even larger 34 percent of saleswomen. An award is not going to impress salespeople who want more control over their jobs and lives. They’ll be thinking, “just put me in charge, I’ll show you how to increase sales,” Kafka observes.
Worthwhile accomplishment. More than 12 percent of salesmen and about 22 percent of saleswomen want most “to be seen as a worthwhile person doing worthwhile things,” says Kafka. For these people, an award “might help a little bit, it might have a moderate effect.” But they are best motivated by regular reassurance, not special occasions.
Team players. About 10 percent of salesmen and 4 percent of saleswomen are best motivated by being an essential “part of the group,” Kafka says. For these people, an individual award is “absolutely the wrong incentive. It is the opposite of belonging, it is being set apart from the group as the star of the month.”
Kafka does not want to abolish monthly or other individual sales awards. He just thinks they should be used more selectively. “Sales managers should treat salespeople as they really are, unique individuals.” He argues. “Pay attention to them. Give them what they want, not what you want. You don’t have to be a psychiatrist to figure that out.”
Managers who notice the differences among their salespeople may teach them something very valuable, as well. “The same rule applies to customers,” Kafka says. “Customers are not all the same. They are individuals. If you want to create a favorable buying environment, you had better find out what their preferred drives are.”