Name an industry the pandemic hasn’t affected for better or worse? Stumped? Practically every aspect of our lives has seen upheaval and the building industry has certainly not been immune. In fact, with increased demand for home renovations, fluctuations in commercial projects and supply chain interruptions, this industry is riding quite the swells.

This is a vertical close to our hearts at Motivation Excellence. We have enjoyed working with clients in flooring, electrical, fencing and construction product manufacturing to name a few. Because of their delivery chain, we’ve worked with them to improve relationships with their own sales teams, their distributors and their sales teams, and the final customers.

Below we review, at a high level, three case studies to give you a summary of how our solutions helped increase sales, build relationships and grow loyalty for our clients. While these are specific to the building industry, many other verticals can benefit from well-planned incentive programs.

Case Study 1: Electrical

Goals –

• Increased brand recognition
• Significant sales growth
• Vendor buy-in to help fund the program

Solution –

• Segmentation of their 100,000+ customer base to capture the top and middle performers
• Incremental sales goals were assigned to the top 20%
• Tiered award offerings to motivate each customer level (including two group travel levels and award point earnings for smaller customers)
• Projected sales growth helped secure vendor buy-in

Results –

• This program continued for more than 20 years, resulting in sustained growth with participating customers year over year
• Enrolled participants outperformed the market trends in a down, up and even market (see graph)
• ROI was more than 200%
• Market share increase achieved
• Vendor contributions significantly paid for program costs, and they realized increased growth as well.

Case Study 2: Flooring

Goals –

• Motivate commercial flooring contractors to buy more from them
• Create a self-funding program

Solution –

• Dove into four years of company sales history as well as industry data
• Increased audience size by 3.5 times to meet client’s aggressive growth and self-funding goals
• Targeted communications to keep inspiring middle performers to reach higher
• Created award options to motivate both the highest and middle performers, including travel and award points earnings

Results –

• 627% ROI: program profit contributions nearly doubled the expected, and the program was completely self-funded
• Equity among participants was built through data analysis, setting reasonable goals and offering desirable rewards
• Engagement among the participants build stronger relationships

Case Study 3: Fencing

Goals –

• Increase revenue from fencing contractors in the United States and Canada
• Build stronger relationships with the largest customers
• Be a source of education for customers on growing their businesses
• Engage internal sales associates, help them create bonds with customers

Solution –

• Built a travel incentive program rewarding the top customers and their guests
• Targeted gift mailings to contractors on track to meeting qualification for travel
• Created an exclusive Buying Show featuring best vendors with show-only deals during the incentive experience
• Included sales associates on engagement campaign emails to keep their excitement high

Results –

• Revenue growth for each qualification period
• Million Dollar Customers grew from 12% to 25% of the incentive winners
• Greater customer knowledge and relationships
• 71% of enrolled customers qualify to attend the incentive event
• Many repeat winners vowing to return for each program

These are just a few examples of Motivation Excellence solutions that can help drive results for increasing revenue, loyalty and stronger relationships. A successful incentive program starts with a lot of research up front, a growth-based rule structure and plenty of metrics to measure achievement. It takes a close partnership with our clients to create the best plan for success.  Once that’s all in place we can launch a program within four weeks.

If you’d like to see our case studies, please visit the Newsroom tab on our website. You can also watch our “Building Business through Relationships” webinar from April 2021 on our website. It contains a more in-depth conversation about all three of the above programs. In addition, you can hear directly from our fencing client contact about his company’s Buying Show experience.