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At the corporate sales meetings where I give presentations, I am often asked to participate in giving out sales awards.

The customers are elated when I say OK. Little do they know it’s one of my favorite things to do – and perhaps THE most important part of their meetings.

PLEASE NOTE: These are not “contests.” They are sales achievement awards.

People’s names are called for one achievement or another, and their names and photographs are shown on big screens. They walk to the stage to accept their awards – smiling, beaming, full of pride.

Photos are taken, hands are shaken, statues are given, plaques are awarded, inscriptions are read aloud, and prizes are given to the people who won, nay, EARNED the award. All their hard work is recognized and rewarded. In public.

What’s the value of this? To quote MasterCard: “Priceless.”

You can measure performance, but you can’t measure pride of achievement. Nor can you measure the motivation and inspiration to continue to achieve.

Their stimulus is not measured in some government handout or bailout. It’s internal stimulus created from personal pride and accomplishment. Winning. Selling.

When someone wins an award, there are several unspoken benefits. There is the incentive for that person to maintain or improve his or her performance to stay at the top. And there is HUGE stimulus for others in the audience to try to win an award next year.

NOTE WELL: Award achievement in public. Not just at the meeting; make sure it’s on your blog, in your e-zine and posted on your Web site.

Sales incentives and sales awards are economic stimulus of the first degree. Real stimulus. In challenging economic times (how’s that for putting it mildly), sales are what will make a company recover.

REALITY: How many of the GM bailout billions are teaching their car salespeople how to SELL in a way that doesn’t breed customer anger and disrespect? My bet is NOT ONE PENNY. One of the reasons GM went under is that it couldn’t sell as many cars as its competition. This stems from a lack of respect for car salespeople and “iffy” advertising like “a dollar over invoice.”

Car sales were down last year and continue to slide this year. REALITY: 7.8 MILLION new cars were sold last year. What percentage went to GM? Answer: not enough. Maybe a better answer lies in salespeople and their incentive to perform honorably and be rewarded for their achievement. Just a thought.

Maybe if the auto dealers rewarded their salespeople on the number of customers who were repeat buyers, or the percentage of customers who also use the service department, rather than “number of units sold,” they would be in less of a mess. Just a thought.

Our new president doesn’t seem to understand the power of celebration and rewarding performance of salespeople. Too bad.

Cancel sales meetings? NEVER. Stop rewarding the very people who put all the money in your corporate coffers? NEVER.

Recognize salespeople for a job well done, and they will recognize you.

Praise salespeople for a job well done, and they will praise you.

Reward salespeople for a job well done, and they will continue to reward you.

Why don’t you take a look at your company, your salespeople and your awards? Maybe some recognition re-org is in order. Maybe instead of “cutting,” you might try “investing.” Especially in salespeople. They are your bailout.

Jeffrey Gitomer can be reached by phone at (704) 333-1112 or by e-mail at salesman@gitomer.com. © 2009 Jeffrey H. Gitomer