I love this quote from Douglas Adams, of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fame:

“We all like to congregate at boundary conditions. Where land meets water. Where earth meets air. Where bodies meet mind. Where space meets time. We like to be on one side, and look at the other.”

I agree. I think it is why beach property is expensive and why people love to see mountains from their back porch. Boundary conditions don’t have to be physical for us humans to like them. They can be temporal – it’s why New Year’s Eve is so special.

And as we begin tumbling into the end of 2019, my clients are thinking about what they should be doing in 2020 – what they should change or what they should keep (I know a bit late but nonetheless…)

They are asking if what did in 2019 was right. Did it work? Will it work in 2020? And if it didn’t work in 2019, why not? Is there something new to out there they should try?

Because of the approaching temporal boundary we now feel obliged to look back and check ourselves before we wreck ourselves.

We call that an “Audit.”

Audit is not a Dirty Word

An audit is a deep dive into all the ways you influence behavior in your sales organization, your channel and your overall employee base.

We look into whether your leadership and your audience are aligned. Do they both see things the same way? (#Protip 1 – less than 80% of the time they do – rough estimate.) Do you have other programs running in the far reaches of the organization that are at odds with the overall company direction? (#Protip 2 – you do.) We look at the core elements of your program rules. Are your programs designed based on proven principles of influence and motivation? (#Protip 3 – most aren’t.) We dig into how you drive awareness of your program. Are you communicating well and often enough to break through the clutter of everyday emergencies? (#Protip 4 – you aren’t.)

In other words, if you’ve never had someone look at your reward strategies across the organization and your channel, you probably have problems. And that isn’t just to sell an audit. It’s just the knowledge accumulated from doing many audits across many industries.

Any strategy that has been relatively unchanged for the last 5 years is woefully out of date and most likely hurting your organization more than it’s helping.

Think about it.

Wouldn’t it be nice to know if you’re doing it right?

Or more importantly, if you’re doing it wrong?

Be safe this week!