What Motivates Salespeople: Money, Recognition, and Development

Why motivation in sales is so often reduced to money

When an owner thinks about their salespeople's motivation, they usually arrive at commission quickly. Higher commission, more effort: that is the common assumption. It is not wrong, but it is incomplete. Many owners find that raising the variable share works briefly and then fizzles out, or that their best salespeople quit despite good pay.

Sales is the area where performance is most easily measured in money. So it seems natural that money is also the main driver. Research has tested this idea over decades and arrives at a more nuanced result.

This overview summarizes what is known about the three major drivers: money, recognition, and development. It complements the article Sales Compensation, which compares base salary, commission, and bonus in detail. The guiding question is: what role does money play in sales motivation, and what else has an effect? To answer it, I first summarize what research knows, then go through money, recognition, and development one by one, and finally show with the Three-Lever Check how you can assess this in your team.

What research knows about motivation in sales

Salesperson motivation has been studied for more than 70 years. Cha (2026) measured this research in a bibliometric study, meaning an analysis of the publications themselves: how many appeared, which topics they cover, and how they connect. The basis was 998 publications for the volume analysis and 621 for the topic map.

More interesting than the volume is the shift in topics. According to Cha, before 2017 the focus was on external rewards, intrinsic motivation, adaptability, job attitudes, and personal development. After 2017, organizational climate, job satisfaction, and commitment to the organization received more attention. Among the current focal points, Cha lists, alongside external and internal rewards, emotions and psychological well-being, the type of sales control system, and dealing with uncertainty and change.

In this research, motivation is usually understood as the amount of effort a salesperson wants to put into each of the tasks of their job. The study shows one thing above all: the question of what drives salespeople has broadened over time. Money remains a topic, but it no longer stands alone.

Money: what commission and salary achieve

Money works. No serious study disputes that. The question is how it works. The article on sales compensation presents a longitudinal study by Kuvaas, Buch, Gagné, Dysvik, and Forest (2016) that tracked sales incentives over more than two years using the amounts actually paid out.

Its result surprises many owners. The level of base salary was positively related to reported effort and negatively related to the intention to quit, through what the authors call autonomous motivation, meaning work out of one's own drive. Performance-based payments, by contrast, were related to controlled motivation, the feeling of having to do something because of the reward, and their effects on effort and turnover intention were mixed.

That does not mean commissions do harm. It means that an adequate base salary achieves more than people credit it with when they see it purely as a cost. And it means that additional variable money alone does not make someone enjoy selling and stay for the long term.

Recognition and development: the underestimated levers

The second and third sources of motivation are less visible but well documented. Recognition means being seen and valued for one's work. Development means getting better, taking on new tasks, and seeking challenges.

For recognition, the study by Jaworski and Kohli (1991) is revealing; the article Feedback in Sales Teams presents it in detail. There, positive feedback from the manager was not only informative but also motivating, and it had a clear effect on performance and satisfaction. Negative feedback informed but did not motivate.

For development, there is the work of Sujan, Weitz, and Kumar (1994). According to their results, salespeople with a learning orientation, who want to get better, worked not only harder but also smarter. Salespeople mainly concerned with looking good worked harder, but not smarter. Both orientations could be influenced by the manager's feedback.

Money makes a salesperson stay. Recognition and development make them glad to stay.

Balance decides: inner drive and external incentives

For a long time it was assumed that inner drive and external incentives crowd each other out: whoever works for money loses the joy of the work. Khusainova, de Jong, Arendt, and colleagues (2025) tested this assumption for sales. They surveyed salespeople on four orientations named in the title of their paper: money, recognition, challenge, and enjoyment of the work. Using a statistical method that maps the interplay of two variables, they examined how the combination and balance of these orientations relate to performance and engagement.

The result contradicts the old assumption. Inner drive and external incentives complemented each other: salespeople in whom both were strong showed better performance and more engagement. The highest performance was achieved by salespeople in whom both were in balance. Seeking challenges, a form of inner drive, played a special role. The authors advise managers to use both kinds of tools carefully and to create an environment that encourages enjoyment of the task without overemphasizing the pursuit of compensation.

The study is based on a survey at a single point in time. It shows associations, not causes. Its direction, however, matches the results of Kuvaas and colleagues: a pay system that relies only on variable incentives does not tap a salesperson's full potential.

The Three-Lever Check: what is your team missing?

People differ in what drives them. A young salesperson may mainly seek development, an experienced colleague recognition for her customer relationships, a third person security for his family. The Three-Lever Check makes these differences visible. It consists of a 20-minute conversation with each salesperson and three pairs of questions.

1. Money

   “Do you feel your pay is fair, measured against your work?” “Do you understand how your variable share is calculated, and can you influence it?”

2. Recognition

   “When did you last hear that something you did was good?” “Whose recognition would matter most to you?”

3. Development

   “What would you like to be able to do in a year that you can't do today?” “Which task would you like to take on?”

After each conversation, note which lever is weakest. Often a pattern emerges across the team. The following worked example shows a possible result in a team of five salespeople.

In this example, a pay raise for everyone would miss the actual problem. Three out of five salespeople mainly lack recognition, and that can be improved at no extra cost: through specific praise in the weekly meeting and a one-on-one as described in the article Leading a Sales Team.

What this means for small businesses

Small businesses often cannot match large companies on pay. On recognition and development they certainly can. An owner who knows their salespeople's conversations, praises specifically, and trusts everyone with a new task offers something that is rare in large organizations. Especially when looking for salespeople, that is an argument, as the article Skills Shortage in Sales shows.

For the first sales hire, the question of drive is particularly important. If you only attract people with commission, you draw people who mainly seek money and lose them to the next employer who offers more. How to build a job profile that fits your business is described in the guide Hiring Your First Salesperson.

And finally, motivation depends on culture. A team in which good work is seen and mistakes are analyzed together needs fewer external incentives. How such a culture develops is described in the essay Building a Sales Culture.

What you can do this week

Start with a conversation, not with a new pay model.

1. Schedule a 20-minute Three-Lever Check with each salesperson, separate from the annual review.
2. Ask the three pairs of questions and note for each person which lever is weakest.
3. At the next weekly meeting, praise a specific behavior, not a result.
4. Agree with each salesperson on a development goal for the next quarter that has nothing to do with revenue.
5. Check whether everyone on the team understands how their variable share is calculated. If not, explain it on one page.

After one quarter, repeat the check. If the weakest levers have shifted, you have changed motivation without raising payroll costs.

In short: money is an important driver in sales, but not the only one. Research shows that salespeople achieve the best results when inner drive and external incentives are in balance. For the owner, it follows that recognition and development deserve the same deliberate design as commission.