Getting clients isn't easy - so I'm not prescribing getting rid of incentives for sales staff, but rather that incentives should be part of the proposal teams role. When it's late on the Wednesday night and the proposal team has to put in a few more hours before they go home, they will be more excited about doing a good job and creating a winning proposal - rather than just getting the damned thing out of the way - if they know they are being rewarded. And that means everyone in the bid team, not just the Bid Manager.

This should be taken further throughout the whole business. Reward and incentivise staff to do better work (not just the work they are paid to do). It might seem easy just now to pick up employees at the lowest rate and work them hard because they don't want to lose their job. But believe me, are they wanting to deliver above and beyond what is required? Will they move off as soon as a better opportunity comes along, leaving you with the costs of re-hiring?

Why not incentivise them for doing a better job? Finishing project early, with better quality? Coming up with new ideas? Suggesting new projects to the client? (How many project add-ons result from project teams with no sales involvement, yet the project team gets nothing and the sales person gets commission?).

Incentives will help you deliver a better product and happier customers in the hard times and have you better prepared for bigger successes when new opportunities emerge.  James England