The classic maxim is that you are better suited using honey and not vinegar when trying to attract something. The principal is that something sweet is much more appealing than something sour. The metaphor is that you should always try and persuade people using a positive rather than use a negative. Sales professionals can work under tremendous stress, but it behooves a sales manager to take a look at the more positive avenues of reinforcement. While things such as threats of lowered pay or warnings can work, they are not oftentimes the best approach. What many people who study sales psychology have found is that the best method is to find an approach that offers a positive reward, an incentive that will look to motivate the sales person though achievement and not intimidate them into selling through fear. Here are a couple of examples of a positive approach.

Improved Profit Sharing System

One slick way to get your sales team to sell more is to enhance their profit selling share. This is a simple way to motivate them without spending any money at all. They are sales people, so the onus of the sale is on them. What you could do is change the commission structure so as to benefit them more if they end up selling more than the normal amount of product. So, if the goal is to hit X number of sales per quarter, you could incentive them to sell more by telling them that any sales over X will result in a larger percentage of commission. The great thing about this method of sales incentive is that it doesn't cost you anything. 

Travel Based Sales Incentive Program

One of the most popular sales incentive programs is to institute a travel based incentive program. These programs are one of the most popular in all of the sales world and for good reason. Sales people all around the world are motivated by the alluring promise of a wonderful vacation package somewhere if they hit sales goals. Many companies set these up and it creates a wonderful competitive energy in the office where people race to hit the goal. No one is in jeopardy of being fired, so there is no bad energy. It's just a great competition. The cool thing about offering a travel incentive for the sales team is that it saves them so much time. People who are busy salespeople often don't have the time to schedule their trips, so this is a great prize for them as it eliminates all of the headaches of planning a trip.

Contact a program, like Fab at Incentives, for more help.