Far too many sales incentive programs fixate on lagging indicators like gross dollar sales, net revenue or total units sold as their key performance indicators. What they need to do is stop looking in the rearview mirror and start looking at leading indicators of success. A leading indicator foreshadows a future state. It tells you if you’re on track to achieve your program goals or if you need to make course corrections to avoid catastrophe.
Let’s think back to our football game. Your quarterback has been sacked six times. Your team has earned no first-down conversions, and there’s still three minutes left in the first quarter. These leading indicators are already warning of a disastrous loss unless the game plan is dramatically changed. A coach who ignores alarms like these will be looking for a new job soon.
Leading indicators must be a planned part of your sales incentive program. Otherwise you’re left completely in the dark while the program is operating. Here are three leading indicators you can use to check the pulse of your program early on and if necessary allow you to take prescriptive actions to get back on track.
Program enrollment
Requiring participants to take some action to enroll tells you right away if your program is engaging your audience. The enrollment could be as simple as logging into the program website and clicking a “Count me in” button. Even this small step indicates a commitment from your participants. Set an enrollment deadline to better track early program engagement. Set enrollment goals and use regular reports on the total number and percent of eligible participants enrolled to tell you if you need to send more program enrollment communications and reminders. If you’re enrollment is low, you might even consider relaunching the program.
Participation
Provide unique ways to reward your employees’ participation. Schedule promotions with bonus opportunities to gauge active participation. Use time-sensitive “Fast Starts” during the first month of the program to measure engagement. You might offer small earnings for passing a product quiz or for submitting a prospect list or even bonus opportunities for product demos in the first 30days. Measure the number and percent of those enrolled who participate in the Fast Start as a benchmark. Use short-term promotions throughout the program to energize participants and act as a barometer of program engagement.
Website logins
Offer a program website with tools to help participants succeed. The website might offer prospecting tools or tips on successful demos, or even allow them to report activities like quotes or sales. It should also allow them to view awards and save them to their wish list. If the website offers these types of benefits for visiting, track their logins to see how many are regularly engaging with the program tools.
Low engagement could mean you need to increase communications or offer promotions. High engagement is an indicator you’re on the right track.
Don’t wait until it’s too late. Programs don’t operate themselves. And if you’re only tracking lagging
indicators like sales, you’re working in the dark. Planning, tracking and managing leading indicators helps you avoid unpleasant surprises and keeps your program on the path to success.
For help designing sales incentive programs that will help your company take performance to the next level visit our
member directory.