Questions still remain however about whether or not we are on the road to recovery. This morning Access Economics forecaster David Rumbens has suggested that the worst is yet to come in the retail sector, once the effects of the government intervention wear off after this financial year. So, there is a strong degree of uncertainty about how the retail and manufacturing sectors will fair in the new financial year.
But Chief Engagement Officer, Ben Thompson, from Power2Motivate feels confident that the retail sector can survive, having seen from his own clients, how channel partner rewards have worked even during these tough economic times.
“We have seen in recent months a massive uptake in businesses engaging in channel partner rewarding as a way to stimulate and inspire resellers to prioritise the sale of particular items.’ states Thompson. ‘Businesses that we partner with directly in delivering a channel partner solution, have found that rewarding external resellers for sales is an effective mechanism for achieving sales growth; even though the economic forecasts up until last week have not inspired confidence. ”
To Thompson and his team, channel partner rewarding makes sense psychologically and gives sellers an edge, value wise. In particular, giving personal rewards to those who sell a particular product plays on the competitive spirit of program participants. “Sales people are competitive creatures, and the fact that through a channel partner rewards program sellers and resellers gain something for themselves - often by way of non-monetary benefit each time they sell a particular unit or service - inspires participants further to sell-in items which they know will lead to a degree of personal gain.’ Thompson explains. ‘It is therefore a perpetual thing, the more that a program participant sells that make of telephone or plasma TV, the more he/she will accrue rewards for their endeavours which breeds more and more desire to sell.”
The growth of channel partner rewards is no accident, as businesses clamour to implement more innovative ways to move their products and services. Thompson believes that more emphasis will be placed on sales initiatives, as technology makes it easier than ever to administer reward incentives that are highly cost-effective. “Channel partner rewards programs can be so easy to administer, especially now that there are good web-based platforms that allow for easy transition of rewards to participants.”
Thompson warns however that businesses interested in implementing a channel partner rewards program need to find the right provider and act quickly. ‘There are so many providers with online reward solutions that charge high fees to both set-up and manage your system technically. Such providers should be avoided as you are not gaining the value, input-wise, that you want. That said though, there are a small amount of companies out there , such as ours, that partner with organisations to run a fully fledged reward program for sales people without unnecessary fees.”
