Sep 25th, 2015 - Category: Sales
After writing the recent post, “Rethinking Sales: Part 9 – Sales Without Commissions,” I came across the post that started this series “Part 1 – Rethinking Sales: Overcoming Functional Fixedness in Commission Based Selling.” Although it was written over two years ago, the basic ideas are still relevant. If commissions are eliminated and a reasonable (even generous) salary replaces them, there can still be a lack of salesperson motivation. The original post references a TED talk by Daniel Pink related to his book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.” The transcript of the talk is a quick read, faster than watching his talk, and a lot faster than reading his book. To summarize, employees prefer activities that include these three characteristics:
So if you are considering eliminating commissions, careful planning is necessary to transition motivation from the strongly motivating “intermittent reinforcement” of commission checks to motivation based on other sources. To be continued…