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Why you should reward more than the sale in channel incentives

Transactional incentives limit impact. Learn how to motivate the behaviours that create revenue – enablement, presales, adoption – and build lasting loyalty.

Treating incentives as if they exist only to push the deal over the line or offer competitive financial advantage, is a fast way to limit programme impact. Transaction only rewards drive short-term behaviour and overlook the activities that drive additional revenue: capability building, solution design, presales influence, and post-sale retention.

This article explores why transactional incentives fall short and how to design a balanced model that motivates both the partner business and the individuals who shape customer outcomes.

Why transactional incentives miss the mark

1) They narrow motivation to ‘endpoints’

If the only recognition comes at the PO or invoice stage, partners optimise for closing, often through discounting, rather than for quality selling, solution fit, or lifetime value. Important early-stage behaviours (registering viable deals, enabling the team, creating POCs) get deprioritised because they’re invisible to the reward system.

Design suggestion: Include leading indicator rewards so momentum pays off before the sale is booked.

2) They ignore the human layer

MDF and rebates mostly strengthen the partner company. They don’t directly motivate sales reps, pre‑sales engineers, technical architects, or service teams (the people who influence customers every day). Expecting exceptional performance without personal recognition is like paying only base salary and hoping for discretionary effort.

Design suggestion: Pair company level rebates with role based and individual recognition and rewards.

3) They create fragile loyalty

When programmes are entirely financial and transaction bound, partners compare brands on price, rebate, or MDF availability. That encourages switching and ‘best offer’ behaviour rather than brand preference and advocacy.

Design implication: Blend financial tools with recognition, access, learning, and community to create reasons to prefer you, not just transact with you.

What to reward beyond the transaction

A resilient incentive design recognises progress (leading behaviours) and outcomes (revenue). That balance keeps motivation high across long sales cycles and complex solutions.

Progress tactics: best improver, micro rewards, balanced scorecard
Outcome tactics: leader boards, goal achievement, per transaction points

Reward the actions that create pipeline quality, accelerate decisions, and improve customer outcomes. Think in workstreams that map to the customer journey. Some ideas could include:

Pre‑sale

Deal registration quality (completeness, verified timeline)
Discovery depth and solution qualification
Demo/POC set‑up and conversion to next stage

Enablement

Role based certifications (sales, presales, delivery, CS)
Playbook adoption (use of mutual action plans, value calculators)
Campaign execution quality (MDF utilisation effectiveness, not just spend)

Post sale / Customer success

Time to value milestones achieved
Adoption thresholds (e.g., active users, feature utilisation)
Renewal readiness actions (QBRs completed, success plans in place)
Expansion signals (land and expand motions initiated)

If it moves the customer forward or improves experience, it’s rewardable.

Apply a total rewards lens (without over‑engineering it)

One approach we use at BI WORLDWIDE is to apply a total rewards perspective to channel loyalty. It complements MDF and rebates by recognising both the business and the people.

A flowchart with five colorful sections showing reward types: Top performer recognition, Tactical incentives, Outcome based rewards, MDF/Co-op budgets, and Rebate – business level, each with brief descriptions and icons.

Total rewards levers to consider:

Achievement and recognition: public leaderboards, peer shout‑outs, award moments
Growth and mastery: funded certifications, learning pathways, specialist badges
Experience and access: exclusive briefings, roadmap previews, co-marketing features
Meaningful rewards: choice-based marketplaces, experiential rewards, team incentives
Financials (still vital): rebates, margin boosters, stackable accelerators

Balance these levers against your programme’s goals and partner maturity. The outcome is a more human, memorable experience that builds loyalty, not just throughput.

Avoid these common traps

Paying for activity, not quality: Define quality gates (e.g., demo scheduled and completed with decision maker).
Ignoring role clarity: If everyone is eligible for everything, no one feels responsible for anything.
Over‑complicating claims: If proof is painful, participation will drop.
One reward for all regions: Calibrate by market maturity and deal size.
No communications plan: Behaviour change needs sustained visibility

Reward the work that creates the win

When you reward the work that creates value, before, and after the transaction, you build a programme partners want to engage with and a pipeline you can trust.

Explore the full blog series

Dive into the full blog series to see the most common channel incentive design pitfalls and how to avoid them with simplicity, clarity, and partner‑focused design:

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