There is another, powerful way to reward salespeople and involve everyone in the company’s value chain in an incentive.

The new idea – get the sales team to give gifts to invite new clients to the company’s offices, and give those customers who had increased their business with the company a gift.

Rather than telling the salesperson to visit the customer with a gift, as a thank you for the business, the customer was invited to the company’s offices. Not only was the whole sales team there, but so too was anyone from administration, and production, as well as delivery who was, or would be involved in delivery of solutions, products etc. to the customer.

Produce a gift basket of the company’s products together with flowers and a bowl of fruits and the salesperson who won the deal hands it over, to the sound of a gong. From there everyone in the customer-value chain was asked to join in, clapping and cheering. The client is greeted with a barrage of happy people, celebrating the fact that the customer was now part of the family. It is an experience the customer and the sales team – including those that are in the back office and are often overlooked – will not soon forget.

The exercise takes up a Friday afternoon, once a week. Any lost sales and production time is soon caught up with the incremental commitment and involvement of the teams; levels of cooperation and understanding between sales and the other departments improves, and customers have a massive win because they got to know the people in the company who services their accounts.