PEOPLE Are strange.
That's right. Employees and consumers alike.
Deep down, we’re all a bundle of confusing parts.
Psychology, personality, culture and society, mixed together in wonderful ways.
Led by emotion and defined by experience, our behaviour can be perplexing at times.
There’s no straight up and down formula to it, our influences and motivators come from lots of places.
But that’s what makes us so interesting.
So, there's no point in applying cookie cutter ways of engaging employees and consumers, right?
This is the ultimate guide to boosting the best behaviours of employess and consumers.
Now, we know that's a bold statement.
But here's your chance to see what's inside this guide.
Click below to jump to what matters most to you:
- Changing your organisational culture - how to get it right
- Creating the moment of impact - making your employees and consumers care about your offering
- Driving consumer loyalty - capitalising on the moment of impact to create repeat business
- Incentivising and motivating sales - going beyond the 'wow' factor of a flashy, disruptive sales incentive
SO, where do we start?
Well, in our Boosting the Best Behaviours guide we looked towards the globe's greatest motivators.
One of the best motivators isn't from a business or HR background.
Not at all, in fact, it was England rugby legend Matt Dawson.
Among many of his insights, Matt explained how many businesses make a simple error with their culture in forgetting about the people who really shape it.
Culture initiatives find themselves coming from the top down, leaving many employees feeling a damaging disconnect between themselves and the business they’re giving their valuable time to.
If you've already got a handle on what workplace culture really means, pass go...
The next step is positive motivation.
Creating a positive business culture starts with humility and being ready to learn from anyone and everyone...
LINKING THIS TO REAL CONSUMER CONNECTIONS
The pace of change in employee and consumer engagement is electric.
Innovative new strategies and technologies turn up every day, and that has huge implications for businesses.
Now, they can go way beyond basic initiatives, reaching people on a deeper emotional plane.
As Jamie Mackenzie, Director of Marketing, Employee & Consumer Engagement, Sodexo UK gleefully describes:
“It’s all about the moment of impact. The ability to create a lasting memory that will ultimately drive the behaviour you want to inspire.”
It all comes back to understanding your audience.
Sometimes incredible incentives need incredible investment.
But more often than not, creativity and context are all businesses need to trigger profound behavioural change.
WHAT MAKES CONSUMERS LOYAL TO A BUSINESS?
When you want to drive repeat business, there's only one place to start.
Ask yourself: why do consumers buy from my business?
Brand owners need to understand why consumers are buying products and how these fit into their life, says Chris Baldwin, Director of Consumer Promotions and Loyalty, Sodexo UK.
Is it a lifestyle purchase, like craft Gin, or a distress purchase, like insurance or car tyres?
Is the brand a leading brand or a struggling challenger brand?
You need to understand all of that - and more - because it all helps to determine how much a promotion will influence the consumer.
But if goes beyond that. Far beyond. It's about taking what makes consumers buy from you, putting together future incentives like a promotional campaign, personalised to what your audience are after, and then monitoring the environment.
CLOSING THE LOOP: INCENTIVISING AND MOTIVATING SALES TEAMS
Incentive initiatives often fall into the trap of incentivising just a minority of top performing employees, says Iain Thomson, Director of Incentives and Recognition, Sodexo UK.
Against expectations, those schemes can end up reducing motivation for many employees.
His advice to companies is to focus on personality, communication, and creative reward structures to boost best behaviours across entire business units.
That means be wary of the empty 'wow' factor, you know the one - the one where a special trip to Dubai for yearly top-performers could actually harm overall productivity.
It also means breaking down incentives into achievable rewards for every individual in the sales chain - that's truly motivational.
And don't forget the M word.
Learn what really motivates your team, and then use clear communication and personality to make your incentives stand out.
GET EQUIPPED. DIVE IN.
The above, that's just a snippet of what's in store for you when it comes to our guide on motivating employees and consumers.
Want to motivate a positive shift in the performance of your sales team?
Want to make your workplace somewhere no one wants to leave?
Want to create the kind of emotional bond that makes your consumers squeeze so tight they’ll never let go?
Then this is the guide for you...