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AMERICAN OLEAN TILE COMPANY

Motivating Independent Distributor Salespeople
Getting the attention of distributor
salespeople

in

the

floor-covering business, as in many

industries, can be
a daunting challenge. For American
Olean Tile Com_
pany, relatively new in distributor sales,
the challenge
yielded to a well-conceived sales incentive
plan that
brought major increases in volume and many
new retail

accounts.

The firm's Bright Choices campaign (see

Exhibit l)
sales personnel has earned an
Incentive Showcase Award from National premium
Sales

to motivate distributor

Executives.

American Olean Tile Company, Lansdale, pennsyl_

vania, maker of ceramic wall and
floor tiles, has relied

heavily

on distributors in recent

years, according to

Ron Autenrieth, marketing manager for

glazed wall

products.

Although the company has been known in

the trade
primarily for wall tile products, the incentive
program

cused on the

fb_

floor tile lines to rncrear. u*ar.rris und

sales
effort for them, and ,,to reposition our
glazed floor offer_
ings in the minds of the distributor
sale.-speople,,,
American Olean's six_rnonth

he said.

."*poign ofl.ered tile

distributor salespeople a variety of merchlandise

awar.ds
ranging in value from about
$100 to $1,000. Awarcls
were individually chosen to fit the target
audience_
overwhelmingly male, 2b {.o 54, coilege_educated,
with incomc over $30,000. Irems wer. hJnd_relectccl,
Autenrieth points out, for appeal to the
special audience
and high quality. 'A bu'ding materials
manufaclurer
cannotjust go to an incentive house
and say,I want to
sell more; create a program for me.,,,This
was a cusrom
program developed in a collaborative process

by the
manufacturer, the advertising agency (Duinyk
C<.rmpany,
Horsham, Pennsylvania), and Don
Jagoda Associates, a
598

consulting

firm

specializing

in the

incentive programs,

developmenr of

Autenrieth wrote the rules, which tied the awards

to
of ceramic floor tile and colored grout.
Incentives were priced in points and sales
credited in the
same language. Fifty points were given for
every 1,000
square feet increments of product sold
to a ceramic tile
sales of six brands

contractor, floor_covering dealer, or other

customer. Sales_
people also earned 20, 30, or 50 points on
the sale of dis_
playunits to dealers, and 10 points for a
product_panel car_
rying case used by tile contractors to present

the floor tiles.

Monthly reporting of each salesperson,s sales
was re_
quired, using a specially designed product Sales
Sheet ac_

companied by copies of invoices showing

shipping dates.
An extra 10 points were given for reporting
on a monthly
basis to spread the administrative burden
over the tirne
period of the program.
Low-end awards, from 100 to 300 points,
could bring
the participant such items as an espresso/cappuccino

electronic q?ewdter, radio_clock_telephone,

cord_
3ake1
less^phone, or a food processor (see Exhibit
2). Reaching
1,000 poiuts was worth slrch iterns as
a personal copier,
|r-rll-top deek, l.idco calrer.a, ur curlrputer_
(r.efcr agarn l0

Exhibit t).

Salespeople wcre requir.ed to fegister for

the pro_
Sram b/ returning a postcard with information incluJing
home address and Social Security number,
This provided
an element of control, and the opportunity
Ibr targeted
follow-up promodon. ,We spent ro*.

.*t

u-*oney,,,Ron

Autenrieth notes, ,,to create a monthly report

that listed
each rep by distributor, by sales region,
and the

pornts
earned. Thiswas crucial to the execution
ofthe program
by American Olczur salcspeople and instrumental
in its

success. "

American Olean Tile Companv 5gg

The sellers showed they were papng attention. Fifty

percent of the target salespeople participated, all selling
the prioriry floor tile and grout. In all, 264 awards were
given, valrred at more than $150,000,
Distributors signed 244 new retail and contractor accounts during the promotion, Autenr'iel-h rcpurLs, Moreover, major distributors delivered sharply improved performance: The five key accounts increased sales of the
targeted products an average of82 percent over the previous period, and two of them more than doubled their
volume of American Olean floor tile.

Overall, the program, Autenrieth says, "achieved a

level of selling effort significantly greater than we have
ever had before." The distributor salespeople recognized
American Olean floor products as a viablc linc,

American Olean had previously used incenfivcs "from rime tn time," hrrt this was called "a step
up from what we have done before. Our distribrrtor
network has grown to the extent that we could strategically think about focusing distributor supporr. We didn't
depend on distributors so much till the last three
years. "

2/1

600

Case

l4

ti3

American Olean Tile Companv

Discussion euestion
1.

The American Olean Tile Company's distributor

incentive program was apparently very successful in
morivating the distributors, field salespeople to
push its ceramic floor tiles and grout, which had

previously beeh neglected. Which element or

elements of the incentive program do you think
were most important in securing such a strong
response from the distributor,s salespeople?