The most productive and fun sales meetings I ever had were those involving the TRAX spiff contest. This contest permitted us to identify and recognize the top performer for the week, and give them the praise and recognition they deserve. We were also able to identify the people who needed assistance and get it to them before it was too late. I have had dealers tell me they experienced large increases in sales volume from this contest so give it a try for at least several weeks. You will find it becomes a great ally and will last forever once it gets started.
Our major motivation for this contest is that it helps insure the success of the overall TRAX system and insures that you get maximum unsold customer information. As you know it is critical that the salespeople enter all sales. They will never enter every opportunity but the sales must be 100% accurate. With this contest they must insure all their sales are entered properly or they cannot participate in the weekly contest and may lose out on opportunities to earn extra spiff money. By the way because this contest carries over to the next week if no one wins, the pot can become quite large and really catches your sales peoples long-term attention.
Our sales meetings also covered the usual product knowledge, open sessions and discussions on ways to maximize our opportunities. Generally the purpose of the meeting was to make sure everyone had the information needed to get the job done, and the enthusiasm and motivation to maximize the day or event, usually on our big selling day like a Saturday.
We would take the first 3-5 minutes of the meeting to hold our dart contest. Setup includes:
Investment of approximately $100 per week.
Tack/pin two blank envelopes/index cards on the dart wall for each sales person.
Six sales people would equal twelve envelopes or index cards. Space two inches apart.
One of these cards would have a secret mark that no one can see (I put a small smiley face or Dollar Sign with a yellow highlighter on the back of the card I selected).
Strategically place the marked card weekly. (Move it around so there is no pattern of where you hide it from week to week.)
Top sales person throws first, and they throw one dart.
If they have a Double Eagle for the week, they throw from eight feet.
If they hit an envelope, you pull it off the wall. If it has the secret mark, they win the money, you congratulate them and the contest is over. If not, the contest continues by moving to the next sales person.
If they have two thumbs up they throw from ten feet.
If they have a single thumb up, they throw from twelve feet.
If they have a yellow caution sign, they don't throw.
If they are late for the meeting, they don't throw.
The fun
thing is “most sales people don’t know how to throw darts.”
If no one wins, the contest amount carries over to the next week! I had several meetings that were worth well over $500 before someone hit the correct envelope. Everyone has a chance. Its fast, and its fun and creates a great deal of excitement! If you call us we will even send you a dart at no charge.
Top performers are recognized without investing huge amounts of money.
If someone gets two CAUTION SIGNS in a row, it definitely gets their
attention. If you set your weeks up
so that they end on Fridays, you will find that your sales people are sometimes
talking to themselves towards the end of the week saying they need so many
dollars or units to hit their goal so they can throw a dart.
They will find a way to hit that goal.
It’s really a lot of fun to watch, and I promise everyone makes more
money.
Automatically Printed weekly so you can prominently post.
Most of us structure goals on a monthly basis. The problem is that many salespeople don't pay attention to monthly goals until about the third week. By then, sometimes salespeople are so far behind it's too late to catch up! For those companies that don't set goals, they have no idea how good they can be if they reach higher. A quote from Yogi Berra says it all: "If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.”
Vince Lombardi once said, “The difference between being truly great at something and being average is a very small fraction. It’s a matter of inches of additional effort on every play.” The difference is a solid work ethic, developing a habit of good daily skills and intelligent goal setting.
Vince Lombardi was a huge proponent of goal setting. He believed that the difference between ultimate success and mediocrity is about 2% additional effort when everyone else gives up. Structured prepared attainable short term goals will get you to the level you want faster than anything else at your disposal.
The TRAXsales Goals Program permits you to easily take your monthly goal and automatically break it down by week. It then permits you to create a minimum performance level. When a sales person is above their goal for the week, they get two thumbs up, when they are below their goal yet above the minimum they get one thumb up. If they are below their minimum for the week, they receive a caution sign. When a salesperson has performed way over their goal for the week they receive a double eagle symbol. You can adjust the double eagle goal to any percentage over goal you desire.
TRAX provides a report, which automatically displays these goals by sales person and for the entire showroom. This chart is automatically printed weekly and should be displayed prominently where all salespeople can see it. If you have a regular Saturday morning meeting you should set this report so it prints each Saturday morning for you and is waiting in the printer tray when you arrive. This report does not display any numbers, but does let everyone know how they compare. It promotes friendly "good old fashioned" American competition. This is also an excellent report for comparing one showroom to another for multiple location operations so you can compare your sales management teams effectiveness on a monthly basis. Our spiff contest works very well for your monthly corporate managers meetings based on overall showroom goals. Especially if you like to bonus your showroom managers based on sales performance.
Most dealers’ structure their goals based on percentage increases over last year unless you have special events or circumstances affecting these goals.
Set
the minimums based on the dollar volume level where a sales person is not doing
themselves or the company any good. For
starters, we suggest approximately 25% of the goal. If the goal amount is $10,000 per sales person per week, the
minimum would be $7,500. Of course you may set the minimums at any level you
like, but if you set the minimums at too close to the goal you will not easily
see if someone is in serious trouble.
Initially
set the goals so that you are promoting success (promoting wins).
It is easy to adjust any goals later, vacations etc.
Setting
goals is a two part strategy.
Set
the goal evenly for all sales people (assuming equal hours worked).
Do not set the basic goals higher for your super-stars for the purpose of
this contest. We suggest that you
apply a fair share attitude for the first level of the goals program.
In other words the goals should be divided evenly by all your salespeople
who are through the first 90 day training probationary period.
Then set a separate private goal for each salesperson based on their
personal goals and motivations. This
is based on a one on one conversation regarding the amount of money they want to
earn for the year. Use the Double
Eagle to adjust this personal goal. If
a salespersons personal goals do not exceed the basic fair share goal, why not?
There are only two possibilities. You
are severely understaffed and your salespeople are at peak performance already,
or you have an individual who is not very motivated by goals and the fun of
making money and maybe is not right for this profession because they are not
going to help you reach your personal goals.
The logic behind first setting a fair share goal for each salesperson is that if you set a basic goal higher for your top performing people and they outsell everyone else, they may still fall short of their loftier goal and thus have failed. If a sales person is relatively new (and properly trained), they should have the same fair share goals as everyone else, and managements job is to get this new person to the same level of proficiency as the rest of the sales team no matter what.
Trax
"Double Eagle Goal" guaranteeing long-term profitability.
The TRAX Double Eagle is designed to enhance your goal program.
As
explained earlier the Trax program takes your monthly goals and converts them to
a weekly program. The primary
problem with a monthly goal program is that most salespeople don't look at
monthly goals until about the third week. Of
course by then the month is nearly gone and it's too late.
The Trax
system automatically prints a weekly report for the entire company, which
displays one of four symbols for each salesperson depending on how they did
during that week.
This
report should be prominently displayed in a lunch, or meeting room for all to
see. It should be a lighthearted
fun and friendly competition. The
Trax system also creates several other reports for analysis with real numbers,
the report that auto prints has only symbols and is ambiguous to someone not on
the sales floor. 
If they
hit their fair share goal for the week they get a two thumbs up icon.
If they
are below their fair share goal but above the minimum they get the one thumb up
symbol, which is still good.
If
they are below their minimum for this week they get a yellow caution sign.
This really stands out if the salesperson has 2 or 3 caution signs in a
row. It permits management the time
to identify potential problems before it’s too late.
Lets face it, sometimes salespeople have personal problems. With the typical monthly sales goal program many managers don't identify a potential problem with a good salesperson that is having a bad personal time until sometimes after the second month. By then in many cases it's too late.
With TRAX you
will have the luxury of seeing problems before they become serious.
If a good salesperson is going through a divorce or is battling a drug or
alcohol issue, or has lost a loved one, there may be something you can do to
help if you identify the problem in the first few weeks.
Finally if
they are above their goal by more than the percentage you have set over their
personal goal, they receive a Double Eagle symbol. The Double Eagle immediately identifies the true
superstars.
There are two ways to use the Double Eagle. The first is to have a personal conversation with each salesperson and set an annual goal then break it down monthly and weekly for each individual.
Or... use the TRAX Double Eagle program by setting the Double Eagle percentage over goal based on how long they have been using the TRAX system. We suggest that you set the double eagle percentage based on how long each salesperson has been with your company. The assumption is that the longer they are with you the more quality relationships they have developed and the more personal trade they will have.
1 yr =10% over goal
2 yrs=20% over goal
3 yrs=30% over goal
4 yrs=40% over goal
5 yrs=50% over goal
6 yrs=60% over goal
7 yrs=70% over goal
8 yrs=80% over goal
9 yrs=90% over goal
10 yrs=100% over goal (why not?)
15 yrs=110% over goal
20 yrs=120% over goal
If a salesperson has been working with your company for five years we expect that over half of their business should be derived from the personal relationships they have developed over the last five years. If they have been working with TRAX for ten years they should be too busy to take new customers who walk through your door. Imagine a very organized salesperson that has quality appointments scheduled all day long every day they came to work. Is this too hard to imagine?
The reason for the percentage increase over the years is they should have an extensive accumulation of personal relationships with customers the longer they are using the program. Initially they should be responsible for their fair share of dollar volume based on the number of hours worked. Once they have begun generating their own personal trade. (This is business they bring in on their own, without the assistance of company advertising.)
Eventually the goal should be to pave the way so that a veteran salesperson could be totally self sufficient as far as generating their personal sales.
It’s obvious that the average consumer will spend many thousands of dollars in their lifetime purchasing your product category every several years. Why not make them friends for life by creating an important, strong relationship with the customers who have shopped with you. Each salesperson should use the personal letters. The telephone with reminders (to do list) provided by Trax, and of course the new wave of the future is the Internet and the use of personalized e-mail that TRAX now provides.
Imagine
being able to send a personal e-mail to a hot prospect with a hyperlink
(automatic connection) to your beautiful web site and a photo of the exact
product category they are looking for.
I think it will be easy to do if you let TRAX manage your customer files for each salesperson and utilize all the tools at your disposal.
Making each salesperson individually responsible for each customer they have sold and also those who have not purchased is the key too success.
Imagine doing
more business than your delivery teams can handle and not spending any money in
advertising.
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