The New Incentive Playbook, Part II
Three more programs for sustainable sales growth
When it comes to incentives, the solution isn’t necessarily more money, it’s about better tapping into motivation for sustained enthusiasm and better long-term results.1
If money was the way to win, then those with the most would have surely won by now.
The ROI on human-centric, considerately-designed incentives greater than the $150 check that comes from an incentive program dreamt up 40 years ago. It’s time to audit your motivation strategy.
Below are three more common, tired sales incentives and three more high-impact alternatives.2
Instead of... The Top Performer Hall of Fame 🏆
What It Looks Like: A monthly leaderboard email or internal bulletin that publicly ranks all salespeople by their total sales volume, often highlighting only the top one or two.3
🛑 Its Flaw: This is another zero-sum, externally-driven comparison that focuses on vanity metrics. For the majority of the team, the leaderboard serves as a weekly reminder of failure, leading to disengagement and resentment.
Try... The Personalized Improvement Shoutout 🚀
What It Looks Like: An internal communication that highlights a rep’s personal progress against their own previous best performance in a specific category. Examples: “Shoutout to Sam P. for increasing his cocktail placement success rate by 25% this month!”
✅ Why It Works: This aligns with the desire for mastery by focusing on personal growth and controllable behavior rather than comparison. It democratizes recognition, making it accessible to every single rep. By celebrating improvement over rank, it fosters a growth mindset.
Instead of... The Flat Fee Placement Bonus 🪙
What It Looks Like: A simple, one-time $X bonus for any new bottle placement, regardless of brand, account quality, or future reorders.
🛑 Its Flaw: This incentive focuses solely on the low-value transaction (the initial sale) and fails to reward the high-value relationship or the long-term work required to secure repeat business. Reps are incentivized to move on to the next easy placement rather than nurture the account for profit-driving cocktail placements and sustained reorders.
Try... The Value Multiplier ✨
What It Looks Like: A tiered incentive that builds value over time and rewards quality activity:
Tier 1 (Placement): $X for the initial placement.
Tier 2 (Adoption): $X * 2 for securing a cocktail or signature pour placement using that product.
Tier 3 (Sustainment): $X * 3 for a qualifying reorder of the product 60–90 days later, paid to the selling rep.
✅ Why It Works: This system rewards the rep for demonstrating mastery of the sales cycle—from introduction to menu adoption to long-term sustainment. It changes the rep’s focus from “how many bottles can I place?” to “how can I make this bottle successful?” By explicitly rewarding the reorder, it directly aligns the rep’s compensation with the company’s goal of sustainable revenue and deeper account relationships.
Instead of... The Volume Chase 🏁
What It Looks Like: A bonus paid only if the entire market hits a difficult 110% total depletion goal—a lagging metric largely outside the rep’s control.
🛑 Its Flaw: Reps cannot control all factors affecting market depletion, making the incentive feel like a random lottery. It demoralizes hard-working staff when the company misses a goal despite their individual efforts.
Try... The Process Audit 🥇
What It Looks Like: Focus on rewarding behavior over outcome. Base the reward on a leading, controllable metric like achieving a 95%+ “Perfect Display Execution” rate, fulfilling self-educational goals around product knowledge, or hitting a weekly account visit quota.
✅ Why It Works: Rewarding leading metrics—the best-in-class behaviors the rep can control—is a better predictor of future success. This method drives sustainable behavior change and speaks to the desire for mastery.
Daniel Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, shows that beyond baseline salary, people are motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose—not just money. Incentive programs relying solely on cash are missing the most powerful drivers.
For more on sales incentives, see James A. Seechurn’s Nothing Left to Take Away: A Practical Guide to Sales Compensation and David J. Cichelli’s Compensating the Sales Force: A Practical Guide to Designing Winning Sales Reward Programs, 3rd Edition. Additionally, Doug J. Chung’s research and writing in Harvard Business Review endorses the idea that compensation changes (via bonuses) must be large enough to be salient.
These models are in addition to those I previously proposed in “The New Incentive Playbook, Part I.”
For those who think this antiquated method is a thing of the past, I regret to inform you that this practice is still very much employed.