According to a survey by BI WORLDWIDE, sixty percent of sales executives design and implement their own incentive programs. If you are one of those do-it-yourselfers, here are a few tips to make your program work BETTER.

12 IDEAS:

1. Don’t assume everyone is automatically enrolled – ask for a commitment.

Make them sign up, choose a goal, or publicly raise their hand saying they want to participate.

2. Keep it simple.

Too often incentive compensation and incentive programs don’t make the connection between the behavior and the award. You don’t want to hand out an award and have the recipient not know why they earned it.

3. Reward both activities and results.

Example: Put together a BINGO card that rewards for balanced performance and engages everyone on your team. Have an award for the most cards completed – AND a drawing for all cards completed. It will keep more people participating in the sales incentive program longer.

4. Don’t give everyone the same goal.

Unlike quotas, which need to be strict to pay out for top performance, your incentives can reward for improvement. Set short-term, small goals and your team will be even more motivated.

5. Segment your audience and communicate differently to top performers than you do to middle and bottom performers.

The more specific your challenges, the better.

6. Include managers.

The fastest way for your sales team to check out is to have their manager disengaged. Give managers a percentage of their team’s earnings – or give them their own goal.

7. Publicize progress with a tracking chart or standings sheet.

And don’t do it only at the end of the program – let them know daily, or weekly, how they are performing.