Surprise!
One can certainly see why the element of surprise causes the heart to race. That’s especially true when people are jumping out from behind your couch on your birthday.
But the element of surprise is also a powerful tool in the world of rewards - especially sales rewards. The surprising psychology of sales rewards and how you can put it to work is the subject of this post.
We want to be clear. You’re not just dropping out of the sky and throwing unexpected rewards at your people “just because”. You’re rewarding them for doing what’s required to help you meet sales goals. You’re also rewarding them for doing the kind of work that bears the unmistakable stamp of your company culture.
That means anything from being there for their colleagues when needed or closing an exceptionally great deal.
Behavioral psychologists have told us for some time that surprise rewards elicit changes in behavior. Psychologist B.F. Skinner’s tests on mice and their behavioral responses to surprise rewards rendered conclusive data in this area.
His results revealed that mice who consistently received the same reward when pressing a lever didn’t model the same behaviors as those whose treats varied.
The mice with the varied rewards were more likely to continue pressing the lever.
Pleasure centers in human brains don’t respond all that dissimilarly to rewards delivered in an unpredictable manner. Even if the rewards involved in any given study (of which more than a few exist) weren’t targeted according to personal preferences, participants still responded to the surprise reward.
And when pivotal information is expressly connected to the reward, the brain sits up and pays attention – meaning that the brain’s pleasure center isn’t the only factor. It signals that more information is to be incorporated to arrive at an understanding of how meeting goals and modeling productive behavior guides the way forward.
The upshot is that surprise rewards motivate employees on a chemical level, in the structures of the brain. But how can you make them even more effective than they already are?
Making the surprising psychology of sales rewards work can be achieved effectively, using the following strategies:
Ready to leverage the surprising psychology of sales rewards? Contact us.
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