The best company sales incentive in the world?

It’s a bold claim, we know. But we are claiming it. 

By entering “Sales Incentives” into Google, you will find about 133,000,000 results. Everyone has their opinions from recognition in the company, additional commission to entertainment gifts like theatre tickets. We do our ‘sales’ incentives a little differently here, and we don’t hold back, which is why we think it is one of the best systems in the world. 

Before I get into it, though, I want to outline what our ‘sales’ look like quickly. For us, it isn’t just about cold hard cash coming into the business. As an MSP, many of our clients need development, education, and maintenance; they might not need a physical sale of a new laptop or device. We wrap all these up within these incentive periods to ensure that recognition is still given to our team for simply passively updating clients’ systems or sending out training webinars on Phishing Emails.

My names Alex, I’m the marketing Lead here at Lucidica, and you’ll probably see a lot of reference to me throughout this blog as ‘The Wizard’. Why, you ask? Why not, I say. It is the character I created, and that I dress up twice a year to get the team to laugh and relax and give these months a personality and story. 

So what is it we do? 

Here at Lucidica, we hold month-long competitions twice a year where everyone in the business can earn points by doing different things inside and outside of their job functions. These points, collected sometimes as teams, sometimes individually, are then tallied up, and we give away thousands of pounds worth of prizes to those that deserve them. Of course, it isn’t just that, though; for every month we do this, there is a new theme and new tasks to accomplish depending on what the business and our clients need at the time. 

Over the years, prizes have ranged from New York Flights for Two, 49′ LG Smart TV to extra days annual leave. 

This May was the latest in these months and resulted in Lucidica’s highest turnover month in the history of the business. We gave out over £3K worth of Prizes with every employee getting something funky, and our internal engagement was at an all-time high. Not only did we accomplish all this, but we generated five internal business development goals that every team member had their say in creating for us to work on over the next six months. It was a big month and a big win and something that we felt we finally needed to shout about to the world. 

So how does it work? 

At its core, it all comes down to the months’ thematic story and what we want to accomplish by the end. Let me walk you through the last four months we have done so that it makes sense. 

November 2019 was a good time. In the business, we were ready to launch our new helpdesk system, Microsoft was no longer going to support old Windows systems, and we were fully rolling out thorough breach procedures for our clients;

• Get as many clients off unsupported windows systems.
• Educate our clients and successfully roll out the new helpdesk ticketing system.
• Educate our team, so we know the breach procedure inside and out.
• Increase revenue (as always). 

Because I am a massive nerd, the Wizard was born, and we made the entire thing feel like an adventure accross a make-believe world, defeating challenges as they went. 

From this month, we hit our goals. A massive percentage of our clients were on updated operating systems. The new helpdesk was a smash hit. We got all engineers following the same breach procedures through internal quizzes, and we pushed the business forward. 

May 2020 was the start of the pandemic and only a few weeks into lockdown here in the UK. It turned the business on its head, and our clients were in a difficult place. Before the pandemic, we had just launched our M365 Security Packages and were starting to see more spikes in cybercrime and breaches as more people worked from home. We set out our goals;

• Have as many clients as possible up to date with cybercrime tactics with our free webinar. 
• Migrate managed Microsoft clients onto all-inclusive Security Packages
• Get our team connecting virtually, not just for work chat. 
• Increase revenue (as always). 

The story? Well, we were all tied to our computer more than ever before, so why not make it about these new adventurers saving the Wizard from his digital prison? 

November 2020 was well into lockdown and saw a whole new set of challenges. Our goals; well, everything felt stagnant, everything was at a pause, so we wanted to hit all bases and get people working with colleagues who may have gone weeks without speaking. However, the biggest challenge was setting the incentives, so we reduced the fixed options and gave a large amount of freedom in what they won. Our goals; 

• Reassert security education
• Get people communicating internally over projects.
• Increase revenue (as always). 

During this month, we saw 22 rooms completed and over 9000 points logged by the team! 

May 2021, MayMania, the latest in ridiculous themed months, we sided with the greatest entertainment spectacle in the world. For this month, our goals were clear; 

• Upgrading clients out of date hardware. 
• Deciding where Lucidcia should develop next
• Increase revenue (as always). 

The theme was wrestling, specifically WrestleMania, hence the name play, and we had a monumental task ahead of us. At the end of the month, we had the highest net revenue month in the company’s history, with everyone getting involved in some way, shape or form and handed out over £2,500 worth of prizes. 

So what do they win?

There is no holding back with prizes with these months! It is a massive celebration of our staff and everything they do. This May (2021) we hosted a massive tech bundle with Avios Points, a 49′ TV, Projectors, Alexa and Chrome products and iPads. Every staff member managed to pick up two gifts (lucky who got the self-heated butter knife) with those at the top of the leaderboard picking first!

Is it worth it?

Most companies would opt for a simple “Sell the most, win a voucher” type situation or increase commission for some time. But these types of incentives are lacklustre and often hollow. They don’t go any further than the surface sales, the pat on the back and move on. 

With these month competitions and building out points for sales,reviews, and allowing others to award colleagues points for helping each other, the business goes through a wave of engagement and a surge in excitement twice a year. It keeps us constantly moving forward together and keeps our clients secure and up to date. It is a month where engineers chase clients about updating their seven-year-old server, where they push to get software updated and protected, where usually it may fall through the cracks without client response. Every month, people who never usually work together do and smash it out of the park every time. 

Financially, it still makes sense. We treat these months as a Campaign rather than an incentive. Using our In-House Sharepoint CRM, we set a budget and attribute all sales, points and activities to the campaign to see what comes out in the end. To put it into perspective, not including the non-calculable fun points of team lunches, social events, praising a colleague or development, just financial sales Nov 2020 had an influenced sales ROI of 696%, and May 21’s Influenced ROI came in around 595%. 

No matter what the medium, that is a campaign worth replicating. It just so happens that instead of ad money going to third parties, that budget is going to our employees, our colleagues. 

Is it the best company sales incentive in the world? 

Well, that’s really up to you to decide but, yeah, we think so. 

If you’ve read this and want to do something similar in your own business, I can tell you there will be a way of doing it, and I’ll always be up for a chat if you need a hand getting there.