Dealer: “I want to give the Sales Managers at my dealership a new pay plan.”
Me: “Why?”
Dealer: “Because I want to help motivate them to close more deals and sell more cars.”
Me: “And you believe you can accomplish this with a new pay plan?”
Dealer: “Yes.”
Me: ‘Why do you believe that?”
I’ve made more than my fair share of mistakes during my career trying to come up with the perfect pay plan or incentive to motivate my Sales Managers to push themselves and their teams just a little harder.
I spoke with other dealers, read articles written by automotive business consultants, and copied what I saw successful dealers doing.
I spent a small fortune on plane tickets, hotels, big screen TV’s, demos for spouses, gas cards, and cash incentives. (Sound familiar?)
My assumption was that if I rewarded the behaviour I wanted to see more of, I’d get more. That was true to some degree however, my mistake was in thinking more cash and gifts alone were enough.
Sometimes it almost seemed like the more I paid, the less I got.
Something was clearly missing…
The following animated short from Daniel Pink, and the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, (RSA) discusses the results of a scientific study from M.I.T. on what motivates employees and particularly managers.
You need to watch this video if:
…you’re considering “fine tuning” any of your managers pay plans this year.
…you’ve given a raise or bonus to one of your managers in the past only to see them end up working for a competitor.
…you don’t have the feeling your team is as motivated as you would like and are searching for ways to get them on track.
BTW: You may have already seen this. If so, take a few minutes to watch it again. It’s been viewed by millions of other business leaders around the world for good reason.
It’s only ten minutes long. If you don’t have time to watch it now, bookmark this page or email a link to yourself and do so later.
It might also help you do a better job holding on to your top performing employees in the future.
You know the ones I’m talking about right?
Don’t wait for them to walk into your office and tell you about the great offer they just got from the other Ford store in town.
Give them a pair of cement shoes by applying the concepts Daniel talks about in the video below.
I enjoyed your presentation. While I may not belive it will work for people simply uninterested in furthering themselves, I do belive that this method would work on the most valuble of employees and further any company lucky enough to discover them.
Great job.