How high is up?

The amount you should reward someone for achieving their goal, doing the behaviors, taking the test, isn’t a static number.

Often clients will ask what the “average” award value is when comparing themselves to other clients.

That number is irrelevant.

It’s irrelevant because my last client may have needed sales to save themselves from bankruptcy (note to self, collect before running the program) and in that case they needed to REALLY get sales people’s attention and would pay a lot more than someone who simply wants to maintain a level of sales.

What other companies spend on their incentive isn’t important.

What’s important is what you need to spend to achieve your objective.

That’s a function of:

  • How much money you have to spend.
  • How much incremental income the program might bring in.
  • How hard it is to hit the goal you’ve established.
  • How much time the program will run.
  • What is the sales velocity of your product/service (how often a salesperson makes a sale.)
  • What else influences success or failure.
  • What the marketplace is experiencing.
  • What your audience’s income range is.

And I could go on and on.

Budget what you need to budget to capture and control your audience’s attention.

Don’t budget what your competitor did or what some mythical “average” for your industry is.

You are the only person you need to worry about.

Do the work.

Applying “averages” is lazy design.