Just about everyone loves a change of scenery. In an American Express survey, 89% of respondents said they wanted to visit places they’ve never been before. Sales incentive trips are a powerful way to motivate and reward your top salespeople or distribution sales reps. Not only do sales incentive trips allow them to enjoy unforgettable places and experiences, they’re also an investment with returns in revenue and brand loyalty.
Here’s the catch: incentive trips are big investments. Most companies don’t have the budget to host these kind of trips willy-nilly without ensuring the trip exceeds ROI and contributes to revenue goals. But if you plan and manage incentive travel strategically, you can drive performance, build loyalty, and set yourself apart from competitors in a way they can never replicate in their wildest dreams.
What’s So Special About Sales Incentive Trips?
Incentive travel has unique benefits in comparison with other sales incentives, such as cash bonuses, debit and gift cards, or merchandise rewards. Here’s what makes incentive travel different:
Novelty triggers dopamine release in the SN/VTA, which results in better memory performance.
—Frontiers in Psychology
Travel rewards are consistently rated highest in the list of potential rewards for two primary reasons: ability to make connections with others in the organization and the unique ability of group travel to create an experience that cannot be bought.
—The Incentive Research Foundations
More memorable – Incentive trips aren’t just memorable for the good times had along the way. Novel environments are shown to improve memory retention. This especially works in your favor if you want to host educational events on your incentive trip.
More personalized – Sharing incentive trip experiences with your sales reps creates a more personal and emotional bond, which improves productivity and performance.
More desirable – Incentive travel is routinely rated most preferred among all types of incentive rewards.
More exclusive – Many of your channel partners and customers likely participant in multiple reward programs that include merchandise, rebates, or gift cards. Incentive travel is a great way to stand out.
More loyalty-based – Most types of incentives can help stimulate sales growth in a broad sense. Incentive travel, on the other hand, is more suited toward building company and loyalty with top performers.
When Should You Offer Sales Incentive Trips?
Some companies offer sales incentive travel to help meet out-of-the-ordinary sales goals or celebrate special occasions. Others offer trips every year. How do you know when you should offer a incentive travel as a sales reward? That depends on what actions you want to motivate or accomplishments you want to recognize. Here are a few specific scenarios that are especially suited to sales incentive trips:
Building Loyalty with Top Sales Performers
Sales incentive trips are the perfect reward for your highest achievers—those who are key to your revenue goals and/or may no longer be wowed by typical incentives. and keeping them engaged with your brand. By offering an unforgettable travel experience, you build strong and meaningful bonds with top performers, reducing the risk of them becoming your competitors’ shiny new asset.
Standing Out Among Competitive Incentive Programs
Are your competitors are offering cash bonuses, rebates, or merchandise rewards? In most cases, yes. An exclusive sales incentive trip makes your brand stand out.
Meeting Big Revenue Goals
Does your organization have a wildly important goal (WIG)? How about a big, hairy, audacious goal (BHAG)? A sales incentive trip is a great way to motivate sales reps throughout the year, driving up average revenue from qualifying salespeople or reaping the benefits of increased brand loyalty after the trip. Big goals require big effort, and there’s no motivator bigger than travel.
Encouraging Corporate Event and Trade Show Attendance
Annual tradeshows are often a key piece of a B2B company’s marketing efforts. Tradeshows offer the chance to build relationships with partners, spread the word about your brand, even offer hands-on demos of your products. But you have to get potential resellers and distributors to show up first! Try offering sales incentive trips that include tradeshows on the itinerary.
Maximize Sales Incentive Trip ROI
To get the most out of incentive travel rewards, it’s best to work with a company who understands the unique goals of incentive travel. Incentive trips require a balance of event management and goal tracking. You don’t want to devote so many resources to organizing and managing the trip that you can’t pull off the fun part. A well-planned incentive trip should transform how your sales reps see you and improve collaboration.
A skilled incentive travel company can help you:
Strategize for Success
Identify your target audience and the sales, qualities, or actions that qualify for trip attendance. Then develop key performance indicators (KPIs) that set you and your trip ROI up for success.
Set the Destination
Your incentive trip destination is often the most important part. Are you going to a place that all attendees can get to without much hassle? Is it a place that’s exciting? Are you going at the right time of year (ie. not monsoon season)? An incentive travel company like Extu has years of experience managing group trips, so they know all the best spots. Plus, they’ve built a network of trusted travel agents and hotels, so they can secure exclusive group rates.
Dodge Contract Dangers
Incentive travel providers know what to look for in trip-related contracts. They can potentially help you avoid attrition clauses and cancellation or force majeure fees. As mentioned above, having an established history of smoothly run group trips helps incentive travel companies build up the mutual trust that makes establishments more amenable to contract negotiation.
Extu offers free site selection and contract negotiation as part of our incentive travel services.
Register and Onboard Attendees
It can be a lot of work to make sure everyone is registered for the trip, has their plane tickets, has a suitable room with any special accommodations necessary, and won’t break out in hives from something on the evening dinner menu. An incentive travel company can help you with trip registration and logistics, ensuring all your attendees are prepped for a great time.
Staff Events
You don’t want to be stuck troubleshooting a projector-laptop communication failure minutes before your spotlight trip event. Incentive travel companies offer event staffing for audio/visual preparation, food and beverage management, event set-up, attendee services, and all other trip event needs you may have.
Provide Onsite Support
One of the key skills of managing an effective sales incentive trip is expecting the unexpected. From attendees getting locked out of their rooms or getting lost going from one location to another, to paragliding plans spoiled by rain, you should plan your sales incentive trip alongside a provider who can be onsite and knows how to think on their feet so bumps in the road don’t spoil the experience.
If your incentive trip provider is skilled and experienced enough, all you have to do is decide what you want your travel program to accomplish and show up!
Conclusion
By offering an exciting and rewarding sales incentive trip, you can motivate sales reps, strengthen the loyalty of your top performers, and generate positivity that leads to better collaboration long before and long after the trip. Provide salespeople an experience they won’t soon forget, and you’ll see the impact in your bottom line.
