『Incentivising Salespeople』のカバーアート

Incentivising Salespeople

Incentivising Salespeople

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概要
 We like certainty. We like our routines. That is all fine for ordinary life, but it can be lethal in sales. When our best people become comfortable, even a strong sales organisation in Japan can stop growing. The question is how to create the right incentives without importing reward systems that do not fit the team. Why do salespeople become too comfortable? Comfort is the enemy of sustained sales growth because predictable repeat business can quietly replace prospecting and ambition. Most of us love routines. We get up, go to work, come home and repeat. Sales is different. Sales is chaos: fragile, uncertain and unreliable. We have to ride the tiger, not look for somewhere comfortable to dismount. I remember watching Kung Fu Panda with my son and laughing when the panda described stairs as his old enemy. In sales, our old enemy is comfortable. Once existing clients generate enough revenue to keep our jobs, the pressure to hustle, reach out and win new accounts disappears. A full calendar is not proof of a healthy pipeline. The test is whether we are generating new opportunities as well as servicing the old ones. This matters in Tokyo just as much as in any B2B sales organisation in Australia or the United States. Do now: Check how much revenue comes from repeat accounts and how many new opportunities your team created this month. Should sales managers focus on top performers or struggling sellers? Managers should protect the development of weaker sellers but put serious growth attention on the people capable of adding the most revenue. The Pareto 80/20 principle is a useful lens, not a guaranteed distribution for every sales team. Imagine one salesperson brings in ¥10 million annually and another ¥100 million. A 50% improvement from the first adds ¥5 million. A 20% improvement from the second adds ¥20 million. That is four times the incremental revenue, despite the smaller percentage gain. Yet managers often spend disproportionate time trying to rescue the weakest producers. Of course we cannot abandon people who need coaching. We should, however, distinguish between coaching to meet a minimum standard and coaching to scale the business. In Japanese corporate sales teams, where relationships can take time to develop, a strong performer with established accounts may have considerable room to expand. Do now: Compare the absolute yen upside from each seller, not just their percentage improvement. Why can public sales recognition backfire in Japan? Public leaderboards and individual praise can discourage some Japanese salespeople when visibility creates social pressure rather than pride. Foreign executives sometimes arrive in Japan with an incentive system that worked beautifully in another market. They announce individual rankings, celebrate the winner and assume everyone else will want the spotlight. Not necessarily. In some Japanese workplaces, people worry about standing out, embarrassing colleagues or being singled out by the boss. The top performer may dislike the attention, while others may feel they have lost face. That does not mean Japanese employees lack ambition or that nobody enjoys public recognition. Preferences vary by person, generation and company culture. The practical point is to ask before importing a reward ritual from the United States, Europe or Australia. Quiet recognition can carry more weight than a trophy presented in front of the entire office. Do now: Ask high performers how they would actually like their achievements recognised. Do high base salaries weaken sales incentives? A generous fixed salary can reduce the motivational impact of commission when salespeople already feel financially secure. I coached a client whose sales team received a ¥10 million base salary plus commission. The client could not understand why extra commission was producing so little extra effort. The answer was staring us in the face: the base salary already gave the team considerable security. In Japan, many salespeople prefer a dependable salary and regular bonus to a heavily commission-based arrangement. This is a tendency, not a rule for every individual or industry. Employers also compete for capable salespeople, so simply cutting the fixed component may drive talent away. The better question is whether the incentive creates a meaningful reason to exceed the target. A commission scheme that looks impressive on a spreadsheet but changes nobody's behaviour is not doing its job. Do now: Ask whether the reward for exceeding target is large enough to matter to the individual. How should companies structure sales commission in Japan? Keep a competitive base salary where recruitment demands it, then make exceptional performance genuinely worth the extra effort. Consider a salesperson earning a ¥5 million base and 10% commission. Asking that person to accept ¥4 million fixed pay in exchange for 15% commission may be a difficult sell. They see the guaranteed loss immediately and discount the ...
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