Since I last posted the Knicks allowed Jeremy Lin to go to Houston. So here is my quick rant before we get back to biz: to my beloved Knicks – how could you? So it would have cost $50 million in 3 years – which is utterly ridiculous (what sports salary isn’t?)… So maybe his brief magic last season was not going to be repeated… So maybe after knee surgery he was untested… But we were there! The Garden was ELECTRIC! We hadn’t seen it like that since Starks dunked over Michael in the playoffs. Every kid was wearing #17. He was throwing alley-oops to Chandler. It was FUN. Far better writers than I have said it all this week. Linsanity is over. We will still watch and the Garden will be full… but it won’t be the same since we will all be watching the scoreboard and emotionally rooting for Houston. Bring us back Charles Oakley. That’s the only thing to make it better.
Now back to biz:
In the last post I shared some great HBR articles focused on smarter selling. Today I wanted to share some related articles from HBR on motivating a sales team. Again – these articles were written with a B2B focus but I think they ALL apply to traditional retail where you are with consumers. Enjoy the reading:
Motivating Salespeople: What Really Works – The “ago-old” theory that money is the only motivation for an entire team of different individuals/personalities may not work in the new economy. Read this article to see why.
Do Bonuses Enhance Sales Productivity? A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Bonus- Based Compensation Plans – This article dives deep into HOW to structure compensation.
A Radical Prescription for Sales - Are commission based incentive plans still the best way to compensate a sales team? Read here and you may learn a different perspective.
The Dirty Secret of Effective Sales Coaching – This article tells us to focus on “the middle”. We may not effectively be able to coach our best and worst performers, so instead we should focus on the middle where we can have the most impact. Very interesting concept.
Cultural Change that Sticks – I often talk about creating the right environment for your team. This article focuses on the importance of company culture and culture affects overall sales performance.
