I am incredibly proud that the Demographica sales team won “Best Sales Team” at The Bookmarks Awards in 2012.

During the year we tested various incentives to see what type of incentive would drive a sales team to bring in a higher volume of deals as well as higher value deals.

This is what we learned:

1. One type of incentive does not motivate all types of people
2. You need to figure out what type of incentive drives each and every sales person
3. Very often, a “high five” achieves more than monetary incentives

The take away from this experience is that a real understanding of emotional intelligence (EQ) is the primary skill set that a sales manager needs and public “high fives” are underestimated at your peril.