The New Incentive Playbook, Part I

Three programs for sustainable sales growth

Millions are spent on beverage sales incentives, yet sales compensation experts find that most transactional incentives fail to deliver sustainable ROI because they don’t produce lasting behavior change.¹ If your sales team treats your bonuses like spare change and your points program like homework, you’re wasting budget.

The problem isn’t the size of the reward; it’s the misapplication of the science of motivation. Leaders must begin to seek solutions focused on human-centric design principles. The innate desire for autonomy, mastery, and purpose—the core motivators identified by behavioral science—can be leveraged to greater success than small cash bumps.² We must collectively recognize the flaws in traditional incentive programming and adopt efficacy-driven models.

Here are three common, tired sales incentives and three high-impact alternatives:

---

Instead of... The Tiered Points System 🧮

• What It Looks Like: A complex matrix across multiple brands and actions, burdened by low redemption value and high tracking overhead.

• 🛑 Its Flaw: The lack of clarity and simplicity means the effort required to track points is viewed by salespeople as a “tax” that outweighs the potential, often abstract, reward. They ignore the program entirely.

Try... The Preemptive Thank You 🙏

• What It Looks Like: A high-quality, non-contingent reward given at the start of a sales period. Examples include a premium (unbranded) travel cooler for samples, a high-quality pair of ergonomic walking shoes, or a subscription to a best-in-class productivity app (like Headspace).

• ✅ Why It Works: This reward reinforces purpose by communicating that the company is investing in the rep’s success and well-being as a professional before they make a sale. It’s not tied to a specific outcome, thus avoiding the risk of undermining intrinsic motivation. Crucially, it requires zero tracking, complexity, or administrative burden after the initial purchase.³

  ---

Instead of... The Small Cash SPIFF 💵

• What It Looks Like: A $50 bonus for each new cocktail placement (up to 3).

• 🛑 Its Flaw: This small bump—a maximum of $150—fails to make a “just noticeable difference” next to a sales rep’s $70k salary. It disappears and is quickly forgotten, offering no lasting motivation.

Try... The Autonomy Bonus ⌚

• What It Looks Like: For every three new On-Premise Menu Placements or successful execution of a seasonal display in a key off-premise account, the rep earns a “Half-Day Skip” (e.g., leaving at noon on a Friday) or a “Trade-Work Exemption Day” (a day without administrative tasks).

• ✅ Why It Works: This reward increases a rep’s quality of life in a tangible, memorable way. It grants them control over their time and workload, appealing directly to the desire for autonomy far more powerfully than a small monetary addition.

---

Instead of... The “Push a Case” Contest 📦

• What It Looks Like: A short, zero-sum competition rewarding only the top rep for selling the most cases of a slow-moving, low-priority brand.

• 🛑 Its Flaw: This motivates only the top performers and demoralizes the rest. It often incentivizes “channel stuffing” and can damage long-term account relationships by pushing unwanted product onto customers.

Try... The Purpose-Driven Prize 👥

• What It Looks Like: A team-based incentive where the team’s achievement of a goal rewards all members, regardless of individual contribution. For example, meeting a team sustainability goal could unlock a fully paid, local volunteer day or a high-end celebratory dinner for the entire team.

• ✅ Why It Works: This model fosters collaboration and links success to a shared, mission-driven goal, leveraging Daniel Pink’s concept of purpose. The reward feels meaningful, inclusive, and builds team cohesion, delivering better long-term results than solitary, short-term pushes.

1. My assertion that transactional incentives often fail to produce sustainable behavior change is a core tenet of behavioral science. This failure is supported by the Self-Determination Theory which shows expected monetary rewards undermine intrinsic motivation (Deci, 1971; Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999). Furthermore, management research by Frederick Herzberg (“One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees”) argues that pay prevents dissatisfaction but does not inherently create the long-term motivation needed for strategic sales growth.

2. While many of the proposals in this article were born of hunches and anecdotal observations, there is a body of research that supports these ideas. A good place to start is with the aptly named Incentive Research Foundation. Their 2023 Trends Report helped me articulate many of the finer points expressed here.

3. There’s considerable skepticism around such a seemingly radical idea, particularly because of concerns over attribution (“If the reward comes first…”). However, most traditional incentive programs often fail to track clear, sustainable attribution between the incentive and the outcome. Further, and perhaps most importantly, the sales outcome is usually dependent on factors outside the rep’s direct control.