Sales Recognition Awards: a Single Tip to Transform Their Value

Sales recognition awards can be invaluable to the performance and destiny of your organization. At least that’s the wisdom put out, not surprisingly, by organizations that sell sales recognition awards.

But despite the self-serving insights, and the sketchy, fishy-looking “white papers” they often offer up to support them, these companies aren’t wrong.

Employee recognition awards do provide some very real benefits—and they’ve been pointed out by objective sources that aren’t actually in the business of selling you awards.

The Benefits of Sales Recognition Awards and Beyond

And, importantly, those benefits can be both meaningful and enduring.

Forbes recently reported three relevant findings regarding employee recognition. The first was that recognized employees tend to be happier, and as a result, more productive.

Secondly, employee appreciation helps create a climate of trust—especially trust flowing upwards, to both immediate management and organizational leadership more broadly.

Finally, recognition tends to mitigate employee turnover, an issue (and nagging ongoing expense) that has caused even greater disruption in the post-pandemic workplace.

A 2021 McKinsey study amplified some of the points made by Forbes. It also made the challenge of reducing employee turnover even starker.

McKinsey found that managers tended to cite compensation issues as the chief reason employees had left their firms.

When asked the same question, those employees themselves mentioned cultural concerns as their top motivation. They simply felt that they were not either valued or recognized.

Custom sales awards can not only recognize sales achievement but also further the organization’s brand. And what’s more central to that brand—or to the sales process itself—than the underlying product?

The Shortcomings of Employee Recognition

Having a recognition program in place doesn’t necessarily address these issues.

The fact that employee awards—in this case, sales recognition awards—can be highly effective doesn’t ensure that they’re anywhere near as effective as they could, or should be. Quality and perceived value go a long way in determining their actual impact.

Based on our 40 years of experience in honoring success and achievement in a variety of forms in several different sectors, most organizations are not realizing these benefits fully. They tend to miss out on two crucial aspects of sales recognition, which we explore below.

What People Dislike About Ordering Awards

Before going into what’s missing from sales awards programs, it’s important to recognize some truths.

If you’ve previously been given the task of sourcing sales awards, you’re probably already familiar with these challenges. If this is your first time, you may already be sensing them.

Even if you weren’t given much in the way of guidance, you were probably given some rough parameters. And even if they weren’t made explicit, those guidelines were probably along the lines of “Don’t spend too much money—but don’t get something that looks cheap, either.”

That can translate into a lot of pressure.

Because if you’re the person with the responsibility for tracking down awards you also (most likely) have a budget—and a deadline.

You also don’t have an infinite amount of time to devote to awards as well.

Sales Recognition Awards Pitfall: Too Many Stars…and Eagles

The lack of time and the fear of making a poor award choice leads to a common pitfall.

The one recurring shortcoming of many sales recognition programs is that they’re too formulaic. Whether it’s the result of a lack of time, or simply a preference for sticking with past practice, too many organizations take the path of least resistance.

What does that mean?

It means settling for sales awards and trophies that are so overused they have been elevated to cliches.

But it’s understandable why these well-worn designs and concepts continue to have appeal.

Just think of all the websites touting, for instance, various prefab, off-the-shelf, interchangeable “star”-themed awards—all readily available and identifiable by product number for easy ordering.

But does a hastily bought, lookalike award really communicate the honor and recognition you’re attempting to convey?

The Other, Main Missing Element

Just to be clear: there are “off-the-shelf” awards that have obvious perceived value among recipients.

The fact that a design appears as a selection in a pre-established, award “line” doesn’t mean it’s somehow not worthy of the achievement it recognizes. (It would be hypocrtical of us to suggest this. We regularly provide clients with more traditional, classic designs like this.)

Again, these awards can have very high perceived value. But choosing them forfeits an opportunity.

That opportunity involves branding.

Awards provide an opportunity to celebrate individual or collective achievement. That may mean the attainment of record sales or a sales goal by a team, or simply the highest numbers achieved by an individual salesperson.

But awards—especially sales awards—also provide an opportunity to celebrate and advance your organization’s brand.

The award can achieve that in a variety of ways. The design, for instance, could be customized to reflect your company’s logo, its geographic location, industry, or its products and services. (And what could be more meaningful to sales success than the very product or service being sold?)

The point is that a custom award can achieve this dual function—and again, this is something we also provide for clients on a regular basis.

Sales Recognition Awards at The Corporate Presence

But if you go the custom award route, won’t it cost you more in time…and money?

Not necessarily.

You can always explore a more custom award design while, at the same time, also considering more traditional designs. A good awards company can spare you the time and effort involved in compiling those designs. You may also find that a customized award actually saves you money.

There’s another option as well.

Another option that can ultimately save you both time and money involves developing a unique award based specifically on your logo, product, service, industry etc.

Establishing this kind of “signature” award design has the benefit of furthering your organization’s brand. But it also vastly reduces the time, effort, and likely, expense of sourcing those awards going forward.

At The Corporate Presence, we’ve also been designing these kinds of signature awards for over 40 years. Whether your initial preference is a conventional sales award, or something more customized, we can guide you to a successful result. Get the award process started. Reach out to us today.