According to Gideon Galloway, founder of insurance industry maverick King Price, you accept that you won’t always be able to keep everyone, but you put as many systems in place as you can to entice longevity.
“Direct insurance selling is call-centre based, which is notorious for high staff turnover,” he says.
“We’ve put a number of systems in place to mitigate this, particularly given our lean business plan. We hire the best, but we also don’t allow for deadwood. If you join our team, you’ll be expected to perform. In return, we promise a great working environment, good staff support and an excellent commission structure.”
Aggressive Incentive Structures
King Price has an aggressive incentives structure, but meeting (and beating) targets also becomes a big motivator on the floor.
Each new recruit chooses a ‘bobble head’ from Galloway’s collection. The bobble head is named and placed on a large board at the centre of the sales room. As deals are closed in response to queries via advertising, the sales person moves their figurine closer towards the centre of the circle.
It’s a quick, easy way to see who is ahead each month, it touches the competitive nerve of all sales people to outperform their peers, and if you reach the centre of the board, you’re guaranteed an impressive incentive that month. Quite the visual motivator.
No CEO is desk-bound
Galloway is not a desk-bound CEO. He spends as much time on the floor as possible. He believes it’s his job to try and know everyone’s names, be available for questions and get involved.
Staying in touch with what’s happening on the floor means Galloway can also quickly spot if numbers aren’t what they should be, or a query is taking too long to get to. It enables him to spot – and rectify – issues before they become problems.
Us vs. Them
There’s no ‘us’ and ‘them’ at King Price – it’s everyone’s company and product. A family wall encourages employees to care about each other’s lives and stories, while the anti-corporate structure that King Price embodies means that while work is work, there is also time for play, after-work socialising, a popcorn machine, and pop art across the walls that make everyone feel they are part of a community driven to achieve the same goal: Great sales, which will equal great growth.
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(Video) How To Increase the Motivation in Your Sales Department.
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