What are your awards telling your sales team?
We all know economic pressures are everywhere, the need to cut costs and maximize efficiency are real but when making decisions about where to cut, make sure that you are not telling your sales team that their achievements are becoming less important by making their awards smaller. Below, I show an example of an employee of the year three consecutive years.
If this doesn’t resonate with you, let me frame it another way. As you may or may not know, In 2020, the Chiefs won the Super Bowl for the first time in decades. Just like in each year since it started, the winning team is presented with the Vince Lombardi Trophy. An icon in the sports world. Winning it means something to football, like the Stanley Cup for hockey or the Commissioner’s Trophy for baseball, this trophy is representative of being a world champion. Image if in 2024, due to cutbacks and budget cuts, upon winning the Superbowl, Kansas City was presented with a plastic replica of the trophy? What does that say to the current champion? To help you visualize it, below are two pictures showing Patrick Mahomes in 2020 with the actual trophy and a facsimile of what it would look like if he was given a replica. Is the feeling of victory the same????
We all know economic pressures are everywhere, the need to cut costs and maximize efficiency are real but when making decisions about where to cut, make sure that you are not telling your sales team that their achievements are becoming less important by making their awards smaller. The effects on your organization can be devastating.