Using the Power of Spurt Programs to Motivate Sales

Using the Power of Spurt Programs to Motivate Sales

Effective engagement with sales teams or customers is a long-term enterprise. Yet there are plenty of short-term goals to reach along the way. Consider sales cycles. Engaging with and motivating a sales team during a cycle can mean good things for sales reps and great things for your bottom line. Enter the spurt program.

By their nature, spurt or spiff programs are short term events designed to accelerate brand awareness or product sales. A spurt program can run for an entire quarter. It could run for just 2-4 weeks.

Program Purpose and Structure

Turning to spurt programs for sales team/customer engagement is based on the principle of injecting a quick burst of urgency and excitement into a sales cycle. They are great at motivating sales members to reach short term goals by offering a meaningful reward. A spurt program can:

• Increase sales team efforts
• Drive focus to one product area
• Motivate competition
• Inject some fresh incentives into an ongoing rewards program

A good spurt program has a deadline that incentivizes sales team members to go all out until the program ends. In addition, spurt programs should have clear and measurable objectives.

The Right Rewards Make a Difference

One of the keys to successful spurt programs is choosing the right rewards. Within a sales cycle, you are looking to reward participants with things that actually interest them. The rewards themselves should be motivators above and beyond reaching sales goals. If you can personalize rewards, all the better.

Individual travel experiences tend to be motivational for sales team members. The opportunity to get away on a personalized adventure with a loved one adds excitement and purpose. Another option is a points program. At Motivation Excellence, top performers can take advantage of using their points nearly any way they want through our Concierge Shopping Service. 

Check Out MaxRewardsYourWay

We believe so much in spurt programs that we’ve designed our MaxRewardsYourWay platform to enhance them. We invite you to learn more about it by checking out the dedicated page we’ve put together on our website.

MaxRewardsYourWay allows companies to create customized reward packages based on goals, budget and item preferences. Rewards can include everything from travel to lifestyle upgrades (think Napa getaways, new fitness accessories or game room tech). Marketing these reward packages is easy. And, it’s a perfect reward option for companies who want low overhead and excellent return on investment. 

Lastly, we offer the flexibility to change elements in the package. If one of your participants earns the Kitchen Gadget Upgrade Package but already has the coffee maker included in it, that person can contact our Concierge Shopping Service to swap it for something else.

Different Ways to Run Spurt Programs

Spurt programs are highly flexible and don’t need a lot of prep time to get them launched. There are multiple ways to set up and run a program. Depending on your goals, a short-term incentive program can reward for total volume of sales, quantity of product shipped or the best increase over the last sales cycle. You can reward only a few people or spread out the opportunities so more people are motivated to participate. Rewards can increase as sales levels do. Sell 10 x-ray machines and earn package A. Sell 15 and earn package B, and so on. They can also be a sweepstakes format. It all depends on what you’re trying to achieve. 

Regardless of how spurt programs are structured, they represent a fun and exciting way to inject motivation into a sales team and boost your bottom line!

Effective Delegation Brings Liberation to Your Workday

Are you ready to cross some items off your to-do list? Jot this at the top: “Learn how to delegate.” Then keep reading, and by the end you’ll be ready to draw a line straight through it!

The Many Benefits of Delegation

Delegation does not mean pushing your work onto someone else. It doesn’t mean you’re lazy or uninvested in a project. It does mean you’re ready to empower your team, build trust with them and be better at your own time management. There are likely tasks you must do; but just as likely, there are many jobs you can entrust to others in your organization. 

Delegation offers benefits to both parties.

In addition, delegation can boost overall morale, improve efficiency and enable innovation. Everyone can benefit from proper allocation of tasks. 

How to Delegate

Figuring out when to assign projects, big or small, is the first step to delegation success. The University of Sussex outlines nine things to think about, including:

• Defining the parameters of the job
• Clearly stating the desired results
• Agreeing on timeline and metrics of progress
• Providing feedback and open communication

What to Delegate

According to the Leadership Team article on LinkedIn, the Eisenhower Matrix is an excellent way to determine which jobs to move from your plate to another’s. Very simply, it’s suggested you group and delegate tasks that are either urgent but not important, or important but not urgent. 

Urgent tasks require immediate attention. Surely you can tackle it, but if there’s someone else on your team with the skill set and flexibility, it could make more sense to ask them to take it on. Too many urgent tasks can lead to elevated stress and burn-out, so spreading them around keeps everyone fresh.

Important tasks help achieve long-term goals. These projects might require thoughtful planning and end up taking a good deal of time over a long period. As a leader, you may feel this belongs squarely in your jurisdiction, or you may know a team member who excels at this type of project management. With regularly scheduled updates, you can keep up on the progress without getting mired in the details. 

The aforementioned Eisenhower Matrix link is filled with tips and strategies to keep your to-do list short and sweet. 

To Whom to Delegate 

This can be the very crux of eventual success. Once you’ve determined that you can move a to-do off your list, figuring out who can take it on is important. Vital Learning encourages leaders to look at a few factors when deciding to whom to give a job. 

• Capabilities
• Enthusiasm
• Level of attention to details

Workload should always be a consideration too. When in doubt, given a standard level of skills, you can always ask for a volunteer. Overall, it’s important to make sure no one is being underutilized or overburdened in order to get all the benefits of delegation to fall into place. 

So, now… are you ready to cross “Learn to delegate” off your list? We hope so, and good luck!

Recognizing Stellar Teamwork at Work; Our Internal Program at Motivation Excellence

At Motivation Excellence our core values are Respect, Integrity, Trust and Exceeding Expectations, or RITE². As a leader in the incentive industry, we like to live what we recommend to others. Showing the people who matter most to your business that they matter to you is critical to increased engagement, loyalty and longevity, whether you’re talking about employees or partners outside your business. When people are more engaged with your company, they work harder to help you reach your goals.

We have an internal recognition program based on RITE² that allows colleagues to recognize each other for exemplifying one of our core values. Everyone gets an award point balance they can use each month to reward one or more teammates. For really special recognition, they can ask a manager for a bigger award point reward. Enter Debbie and Josee.

Debbie, a 27-year veteran of our office, had a serious medical condition that required her to take several months off. Debbie is one of our jill-of-all-trades team members. Among many other things, she has a hand in quoting our creative services, purchasing supplies, working with print vendors and organizing mailings out of our on-site warehouse. She’s one of those people who you don’t realize all she does until she’s not there. 

When Debbie left, Josee, our travel mailing coordinator, didn’t ask what she could do to help fill the void. She just did it. Knowing the ins and outs of the warehouse and how mailings work already, Josee stepped up to make sure all mailings, including those outside the travel department, stayed on schedule, had the proper packaging and personally assembled and shipped every one to an exacting standard. She coordinated with both internal teams and external vendors to keep the flow of work right on schedule. And then, Debbie says, she did even more. 

“When time was available Josee again took it upon herself to give the warehouse a good cleaning. All the materials in stock have been organized and labeled for easy access in the future. She donated items we no longer were using so we could help others in the community,” wrote Debbie in her Exceeding Expectations award nomination. 

In response, company leadership recently lifted up Josee as an example to celebrate our Exceeding Expectations core value. For Josee, she was surprised, but honored.

“She’s my friend. I’m just glad she’s healthy again. I didn’t want her to worry about anything at work. She absolutely would’ve done that for me. We all do that here. We show up to get the work done,” said Josee.

Josee plans to use her reward to make an upcoming mother-son adventure to Italy even more special. Sharing the appreciation with family makes it that much more meaningful and memorable!

How to Personalize Group Travel Programs with Motivation Excellence

Personalization and group travel may seem like they don’t mesh. We are happy to say they can! There are numerous ways to personalize group travel programs, whether you are putting together an incentive travel program for employees or channel partners.

Group travel is something we specialize in at Motivation Excellence. Our planners incorporate plenty of personalized options to make our travel programs feel one-of-a-kind the people earning them. Here are a few ways we do just that:

1. Offer a Variety of Activities

Group travel doesn’t have to mean the exact same activities for every participant. Group travel program itineraries can be quite flexible, including a variety of choices. By offering many activities and the ability to choose, you give participants an opportunity to help craft an adventure they will genuinely appreciate. 

We recommend putting together a list of activities with broad appeal. The idea is to have something for everyone. You might offer fitness activities along with golf, an adventure experience, spa sessions, and local tours. And don’t underestimate “at leisure” time. It’s consistently a winner with our participants. 

2. Make Dining More Intimate

It has been our experience that group travel participants appreciate a more intimate dining experience, so they have an opportunity to spend quality time with executives or preferred suppliers.

Vendor-sponsored dinners allow participants to have access to product managers, and vice versa. If you’re hosting a channel partner incentive travel experience, connecting your distributors with favorite suppliers creates great relationships, with you right in the middle. If you’re running an internal sales incentive, giving top performers time to meet with the C-suite is very motivating. 

3. Use the Motivation Excellence Inspire Platform

We’ve saved the best tip for last: use the Motivation Excellence Inspire technology for group travel. Inspire is a truly unique platform that puts personalized itineraries right in your travelers’ hands. Group dinners, individual activity selections, flights and more are easy to access via a phone or computer. 

Inspire is completely customizable to match your company’s colors, logo and style. From program registration to plane seat preference to FAQs about your destination, Inspire helps engage your participants before, during and after your group travel event. 

Some Things to Keep in Mind

Motivation Excellence takes incentive group travel to new levels. We use only highly-rated hotel properties and provide only the best staff to ensure flawless execution on-site. 

Notice, we don’t call these “trips.” Anyone can take a trip. We provide experiences that people cannot plan on their own; experiences that are truly memorable and motivating.

Group travel doesn’t have to be static. It does not need to be a one-size-fits-all experience. Whether you are putting together a program for employees, channel partners or favorite vendors, we can help you personalize the program so that every participant feels like the experience was made just for them!

Get to Know ME with Melissa Nazareno

It’s time to get to know Melissa Nazareno, our Accounting Manager. As you can read below, she sees the fun in numbers and systems, which makes her a perfect fit for her role! Read on to learn about her passions for space exploration, delegation and solving challenges. Thanks, Melissa, for participating in our Get to Know ME segment this month!

What’s your current title and how long have you been in the incentive industry?

My current title is Accounting Manager, and I’ve been in the incentive industry for 1 year with Motivation Excellence.

What do you like about your job?

I love my job because it allows me to solve business challenges and optimize operations by transforming digital and financial infrastructures. Motivation Excellence has built a supportive culture that allows for growth. I can geek out on numbers, play with systems, and have strategic impact. My job is fun, and I’m excited for our future.

What’s something you want to share about the people you work with at Motivation Excellence?

I’m surrounded by fun-loving people who have built careers around making others happy and driving positive change. Our team strives to deliver exceptional incentive experiences and innovative technology for our clients. Coming from an audit role where clients weren’t always thrilled to see me, I greatly appreciate this industry.

What’s a specific moment in your history that always stands out as a defining moment, and why?

I’ve had a collection of moments which led to a pivotal understanding: time is precious. With whom and how I spend it is sacred. I’m big on process improvement and continually work to streamline my life with this in mind.

What’s an unknown or odd talent you have?

I’m amazing at talking to engineers and translating what they said to non-engineers. Specifically odd, but very handy in solving cross-functional challenges and troubleshooting. I’ve worked in systems implementations and my spouse is an engineer, so I’ve had a ton of practice!

What motivates you to accomplish things in your life (work or personal)?

The pursuit of truth and the quest for knowledge propels me. I love learning and trying new things to find out more about myself. Life is a sandbox, and I seek out adventure.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

Being an executive assistant to three little ones means mastering the art of multitasking. While I love spending time with them, I also cherish my daily runs, accompanied by a podcast at 2x speed – it’s meditative.

One thing that always makes you laugh is?

Non-sequiturs and deadpan humor.

What’s a bucket list item you can’t wait to cross off?

I’d love to watch a rocket launch – or even better, travel to space.

This month, our theme for social media is “Effective Delegation.” What are your tips on delegation?

I’m passionate about this topic. Simply being the best at something doesn’t mean you should always do it. I believe in passing on the value you can create to others, empowering them by matching the right tasks to the right people. The goal is to help someone progress from being task-focused to taking ownership. One of the most overlooked aspects of effective delegation is recruiting and maintaining a pipeline of talented people for value creation. I love lifting others up and watching them grow.

Looking Ahead with Confidence & Optimism as We Celebrate an Anniversary

There’s nothing like an anniversary that gets you to look back and forward at the same time. We celebrate 39 years in the incentive industry in September. David Jobes was part of that history for 32 years, until he passed away in July. Our company will remain owned by the Jobes family. In a recent company-wide meeting they expressed their commitment to the company, calling the team a second family, and saying the company is stronger than ever as two members of the leadership team step up to run the business.

Bob Graham and Michelle Ebner, both Vice Presidents on the leadership team, are now co-CEOs and co-Presidents. Graham has a long history in the incentive industry and at Motivation Excellence, most recently serving as VP, Client Solutions and Technology. He will focus on operations and sales, while Ebner, formally VP, Finance, will concentrate on corporate finance and human resources.

“The foundations of Motivation Excellence, which include our culture and exceeding our clients’ expectations, are solid. Michelle and I are focusing attention on running things even more efficiently so we can serve our clients at the highest standard and maximize the company’s growth potential. David had a strategic vision for the company, and we plan to keep that going,” said Graham.

The existing leadership team will remain intact and includes longtime veterans of the industry. Brad Hecht is the Sr. VP of Travel & Chief Travel Strategist, Rhonda Brewer is VP, Sales and Kelli Robb is VP, Travel Operations. All three are deeply involved with our group travel and award point program clients.

“We will honor David’s legacy by continuing our high level of service. He built an amazing culture with our clients and our internal teams, and it’s a priority to keep that alive,” remarked Ebner.

It’s heartwarming to keep Motivation Excellence within the Jobes family, and especially wonderful to have people from our work family take the reins going forward. We will continue to Inspire Extraordinary Performance through our motivating B2B and employee incentive programs and aspirational rewards solutions.

In Rewards and Recognition, Leadership Enthusiasm Is Critical

Both personalized rewards and travel incentives can improve engagement, boost morale, and contribute to greater productivity. But if an organization expects its incentivization efforts to pay off in the long run, there is a critical ingredient that cannot be ignored: leadership enthusiasm. Leadership needs to do more than endorse programs on paper. They need to be personally involved.

A March 2024 post by Forbes Council’s Member David Grossman drives home this point really well. We will borrow from Grossman’s post while adding our own thoughts. When all is said and done, we hope you walk away with a better understanding of how leadership impacts both the tangible and intangible benefits of personalized rewards and employee recognition.

Leadership Was Into It

Grossman began his post by discussing a recent experience that had made a huge impression on him. As he put it, he “had the opportunity to observe an exemplary employee recognition program in action.” The program was designed to award employees who demonstrated the company’s values in remarkable ways.

That alone says something. The employer went beyond offering personalized rewards and recognition just to increase engagement or boost productivity. They actually want their employees to live out company values as they do what they do. They want company culture to be more than words on paper. They want it to define how employees do what they do.

At any rate, Grossman observed that company leadership was really into the recognition part of the program. During the official recognition ceremony, leadership described how award winners exemplified company values. They described how the award winners went above and beyond to meet the needs of both clients and colleagues.

The Excitement Was Palpable

According to Grossman, the excitement in the room was palpable. There was an energy not seen in most employee recognition events. Most importantly, all the employees were able to see first-hand that company leadership actually believed in what they were doing. They saw that their leaders were genuinely enthusiastic about recognizing employees for their exemplary work.

It’s Not Always That Way

Unfortunately, what Grossman observed is not the standard for every company. In fact, he cited statistics from a Gallup poll showing just the opposite. According to the poll:

• 40% of American employees receive recognition a few times per year or less.
• Just 23% reported that their employers had recognition programs in place.

Things do not have to be this way. In fact, they should not. The same Gallup poll reveals that employees who are regularly recognized for doing well are four times more likely to be engaged at work. They are also 73% less likely to report burnout.

More Than Just a Human Resource

Perhaps a good way to summarize everything Grossman wrote in his post is to say that American workers want to be treated like they are more than just human resources. They want to be treated as partners with ideas to contribute, visions for the company, and the ability to serve clients without being tethered.

Personalized rewards and recognition programs cannot meet every employee engagement need in the modern workforce. But they can go a long way toward demonstrating to employees that they are human beings with value rather than just easily replaced resources.

Just remember this one thing: the success of any rewards or recognition program is intrinsically tied to leadership enthusiasm. Leadership needs to buy-in, both on paper and through actively participating in recognizing hard working employees. The more enthusiasm leadership displays, the more enthusiasm they will encourage in their employees. Ultimately, that’s what makes all this work.

Manage Risk to Maximize Your Possibilities

We live with risk, every day, in multiple ways. Many we know about, like, running with scissors, crossing the road without looking both ways, and eating too much sugar. We make choices to avoid potentially disastrous outcomes: holding the scissors in a safe manner while walking, using a traffic light to cross the street, and hopefully, quitting bad habits that can lead to poor health. 

If you’re reading this blog, you’ve already led a life full of risk management, perhaps without knowing it. Maybe you’re ready to step it up a level so that in the end, you can feel more comfortable taking calculated risks that have tantalizing rewards tied to them.

Creating a Safety Net

Business leaders often have to think ahead to try and visualize all the outcomes in a given scenario. It’s when they don’t see a potential danger that things can spin out of control quickly. An unforeseen threat can lead to a loss in profits, personal injury, a tarnished brand or worse. Outside the business environment, we also look for potential hazards. That’s why we push kids to wear helmets while riding bikes and why most states made it a law to wear seatbelts in motor vehicles.

Investopedia.com has an article that lays out five well-known strategies for managing risk. They include:

• Avoidance – not participating in harmful activities
  • Saying no to the hang-gliding adventure, or shady investment
• Retention – acknowledging the inevitability of certain risks and accepting the responsibility
  • Assuming a deductible, or not insuring something at all because the cost to replace doesn’t warrant it
• Loss prevention & reduction – recognizing you can minimize, but not eliminate all risks
  • Installing a camera doorbell, or putting a locking bar on your car’s steering wheel

California State University, Fullerton expounds on the management strategy of sharing or spreading risk in their write-up. To thin out a risk, like losing an important document, make sure to save it in multiple places so if a computer gets damaged or a filing cabinet gets soaked with water, the information has been spread, or shared, to another location. They also suggest looking at the likelihood and severity of risks as a way to determine how much effort, and money, is put toward potential management. 

In the incentive market, business leaders might choose to use Motivation Excellence’s experienced team to lessen risks associated with planning and executing an incentive program for their channel partners or sales team. Hiring an expert in any field is a great way to mitigate potential risks in areas not familiar to your own team while maximizing return on investment. 

Linking Risk and Reward

There are risks we simply want to avoid, and then there are ones that tempt us with the potential for greatness! Indeed, the beauty of a well-calculated risk is in the payoff if it succeeds. In fact, Skillcast.com writes that it’s important to recognize not all risks are negative. Sometimes taking a chance enables us to take advantage of an opportunity. 

On top of a positive outcome, FloQast, a finance and accounting company, states employing risk management strategies can have other positive effects, like:

• Saving you money
• Improving quality of decision-making
• Increasing productivity

Consider the risk-reward ratio too. Is the potential reward worth the potential risk? 

Taking the Smart Risk

There is more than one successful business owner who says the biggest risk you can take is to NOT take any risks at all. But of course, gambling blindly and going in with a well-thought-out strategy are wildly different. You could always get lucky with the former, but odds of success are higher over the long run with the latter. Keep these bullets in mind as you set out to manage risk in your life:

• Identify risks early
• Know what you can control
• Mitigate when possible
• Monitor and adjust as needed

And when you’re not playing with someone’s life savings or health and safety, perhaps risk-taking can be a double-edged sword of positive outcomes. If you succeed, you can lead others down the same path. If you fail, you can teach others from your mistakes. Here’s hoping all your risks pay off in the end!

How Engaging Family Members Can Boost Your Sales Incentive Programs

The companies we work with sincerely want engaged channel partners. It is one of the reasons they offer incentive programs for channel partners. But did you know that incentivizing channel partners doesn’t begin and end in the workplace? It also extends to family members.

One of the rarely talked about secrets of using incentive programs to boost channel partner engagement is getting family members involved. There are numerous ways to engage with family members. At the top of the list is to include them in incentive program communications. That way, they can get excited about the incentives as well. They can become cheerleaders at home.

Incentivize the Entire Family

Along the many incentive and reward programs we offer are personal rewards designed for individual channel partners. We can help your company design a package that uniquely fits your workforce. Personal reward options include things like:

• Dining experiences.
• Individual travel experiences.
• Tickets to concerts and sporting events.
• Music and book subscriptions.

Many of our reward options don’t just benefit the single channel partner. They benefit the entire family. One channel partner might take a spouse to the fanciest restaurant they have ever been to. Another might share tickets to the year’s hottest concert with every member of the family. It is not just the channel partner who winds up being incentivized; the entire family is incentivized.

At home, family members can cheer on the channel partner, encouraging them to be the best possible salesperson. And when the salesperson succeeds, the whole family gets rewarded. Talk about building excitement at home. Nothing else compares.

Involving Families in Incentive Engagement Pays Off in Multiple Ways

Involving families in channel partner engagement has a direct impact by encouraging family members to support their loved ones as they help them to be the best they can be. But there are indirect ways through which family member incentivization pays off. Let us look at a few:

• Financial Security – Modern families long for a sense of financial security. That being the case, some are unwilling to spend money on life’s little extras because they don’t want to jeopardize the budget. Providing those little extras through a channel partner incentive program enables families to enjoy some nice things while still being confident about their finances.
• Work-Life Balance – Work-life balance is an ongoing pursuit for salespeople of all ages. When personal rewards can be shared with family members, every experience becomes a step toward better balance. That makes for more close-knit families.
• Increased Engagement – Americans sincerely want what is best for their families. When they see family members benefiting from their own incentive programs, it makes them feel good. They are more engaged at work as a result. After all, they want to earn those rewards so they can share them with the family.
• Improved Emotional Wellness – Family members cheering one another on in pursuit of a shared goal find strength and unity in doing so. That can make for better emotional wellness, both at work and at home.

It is easy to look at channel partner programs as little more than a way to retain good business. Personalized rewards can do just that. But they can do so much more. One of the things we have learned here at Motivation Excellence is that engaging family members makes an incentive program much more effective.

If you would like to learn how to include family members in your channel partner engagement efforts, reach out to Motivation Excellence right away. We have all sorts of incentives and rewards that fit perfectly with the idea of getting family members involved.

Remembering David Jobes, Owner & CEO

This is a hard blog to write. The passing of David Jobes leaves a huge hole for us as his work family. Please follow this link to view the official company press release. Continue reading here to get the personal side of David’s impact on all of us at Motivation Excellence. 

David was hired by our founder, Greg Lewis, seven years after the company started. In his 32 years here, he steadfastly rose to become an influential leader. He was the long-time President before buying the company in 2018. 

Company culture was very important to David. Recognizing everyone’s contributions, hosting regular company gatherings, placing an emphasis on charity, supporting each other outside of work, and having a philosophy of autonomy all helped create a collaborative and respectful work environment. His door was open to anyone in the company who needed to chat on a personal or professional level. We truly do consider ourselves a family here at Motivation Excellence, and he paved the way for that. 

When he built-out our headquarters he took great care to create a space that invited collaboration, creativity and social interaction. He hated cubicles. He was happiest on the days everyone was in the office, laughing and working together. He was also dedicated to being respectful of our natural resources. Much of our office space is made up of eco-friendly and vegan materials, from the ceiling tiles to the coasters. 

Above all, David was committed to making sure our clients were being served with the most elevated level of standards. He was quick to provide resources to help exceed our clients’ expectations. He gave his leadership team the ability, trust and freedom to run their individual departments in the best way to accomplish this goal. He truly worked hard to Inspire Extraordinary Performance for our clients’ participants, as well as each of us. 

We will surely miss his positive energy, passion for excellence and unwavering devotion to the Cubs. He was quick to laugh, share a smile or lend a helping hand both inside and outside work. He has inspired those of us who have worked with him and that’s why we know his legacy will continue to be strong within Motivation Excellence.