If you look at the numbers from our recent survey of incentive planners, you'll see that 26.4 percent increased sales program budgets, while 62.4 percent raised their per-recipient budgets. Which suggests that more money is being spent on sales awards for fewer people. Indeed, those who reported increasing the value of awards offered outnumbered those who cut them by a margin of 2.5 to one.
On the other hand, in last year's Sales IQ survey (then called the Sales Facts report), half as many respondents (6 percent) reported cutting their program budgets, and virtually none cut the per-recipient budget. So clearly, the recession is having an impact.
Finally, you'll have to CLICK HERE to download the full results for the numbers, but the respondents who put their overall incentive budget in the $100,000 to $499,999 range increased 7 percent from 2007 to 2008, while those in the $1 million-plus range decreased about 7 percent. The $500,00 to $1 million bracket was flat, at about 6 percent.