Every year, National Salesperson Day is an opportunity to honor your sales team for the hard work they put in to keep revenue flowing.
As a manager, you likely want to express gratitude but feel unsure how best to do it. If you’ve ever wondered how much you should spend on rewards for salespeople or whether you should hand them out publicly or behind closed doors, this article is for you.
Discover seven actionable ways you can celebrate your salespeople around National Salesperson Day, including what to plan and how and where to do it.
Key takeaways from National Salesperson Day
National Salesperson Day started in 2000 as a way to appreciate salespeople’s hard work.
Businesses celebrate it annually on the second Friday in December.
To show gratitude toward salespeople, consider taking them on a trip, giving them a bonus or praising them publicly on social media.
Show you care by investing in tools like Pipedrive that make salespeople’s work easier – sign up for a 14-day free trial today.
What is National Salesperson Day?
Sales consultant Maura Schreier-Fleming created National Salesperson Day in 2000 to honor the role that salespeople play in driving business success.
Initially celebrated on the first Friday every March, since 2010 it has moved to the second Friday in December.
This date shift means that National Salesperson Day 2026 will be on December 11. You can view the subsequent four National Salesperson Days in the following table:
Year | Date of National Salesperson Day |
2027 | December 10 |
2028 | December 8 |
2029 | December 14 |
2030 | December 13 |
Companies in both the US and other Western countries, including the UK and Australia, commemorate National Salesperson Day.
Reasons to create a national day of gratitude for professional salespeople include:
The role sales plays in bringing in revenue to keep the bottom line healthy
The efforts of salespeople in building relationships with customers
The long distances that salespeople sometimes travel each day to meet with clients
The hours sales reps put in to study the product portfolio and answer customers’ questions effectively
The fact that many salespeople work either partially or fully for commission
None of this work is easy, so salespeople deserve a day of the year when their colleagues acknowledge all their efforts.
How to show salespeople appreciation in seven ways that matter
Here are seven sales incentive strategies that you can implement in your business for National Salesperson Day.
1. Award a bonus to incentivize future achievement
Salespeople typically chase ambitious goals and financial success, so they’re likely to appreciate a bonus.
Exactly how much you should pay your salespeople as a bonus varies by industry. Here are some benchmarks:
You can pay salespeople their full bonus on National Salesperson Day. The advantages of an annual bonus are that your business conserves cash until the end of the year and your finance team has less paperwork to manage.
An equally valid approach is to pay salespeople monthly bonuses, with one of these falling on National Salesperson Day. This option often aligns better with cash flow and gives salespeople something to strive toward each month.
A third possibility is quarterly bonuses, with a larger annual bonus provided on or around National Salesperson Day.
Some companies choose to reward only top performers on National Salesperson Day. While this is cost-efficient for your business and provides a meaningful incentive for salespeople, it may lead to resentment among the rest of your sales team.
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Teams that are transparent about how much of a bonus salespeople receive on National Salesperson Day promote a meritocratic culture where reps have something to work toward.
Keep in mind that if there’s a discrepancy between how much each salesperson receives, lower-performing salespeople might get jealous or overly competitive and try to take deals from their colleagues.
You can find a middle ground by sharing how your company calculates bonuses without highlighting exact figures.
2. Offer gifts that make reps feel valued
Rather than give your salespeople money, you can also buy them a gift to say thanks.
The safest type of gift is something the salesperson gets to spend on what they want, such as a gift card. You also can’t go wrong with a classic gift like a bottle of wine, chocolates or a card signed by your team.
Some companies like to gift merchandise with their logo on, like this swag from grocery tech brand Instacart:
You can also gift the very product your sales team is selling. Such gifts have a professional, corporate vibe, which salespeople might not appreciate as much as a more personal token.
Gifts that are more specific to salespeople include:
A mug that says “Coffee is for closers”
Classic sales books like How to Win Friends and Influence People
A briefcase or fountain pen for salespeople who travel to see clients
Noise-canceling headphones to help the sales rep stay in the zone
Edible gifts that the salesperson can try and subsequently order for clients
Whichever gift you choose, budget $20–$100 per rep and spend more on those who performed the best.
Consider how you want to distribute the gifts to your salespeople. While public gift-giving makes recipients feel special, salespeople who don’t receive anything might feel left out or even resentful.
3. Throw a party in your sales team’s honor
Some companies celebrate their sales team’s achievements with a party, ideally on the evening of National Salesperson Day.
If you hold the event later in December, reps may see it as part of the holiday season, which can dilute its impact on sales morale.
Parties don’t have to be the traditional sort with music and drinks. For example, project management tool Monday.com set up a glitter tattoo parlor:
If you have a large office, it’s cost-effective to use that as your party venue for the evening. If your office is small or the majority of salespeople sell from home, it’s better to book a dedicated party venue large enough to host your team.
Invite your whole team, particularly if they’re based in one state or country. Your party will be most motivating for salespeople if you celebrate their achievements in front of the entire company.
Sales staff will feel proud if you invite their partners to the party and publicly praise them. The only downside of a party that includes plus-ones is that it will cost more for drinks, snacks and entertainment.
Remember to communicate your company’s alcohol policy in advance. If employees need to bring their own drinks, it will keep costs down but appear less generous.
Budget around $50–$100 per person, plus additional costs for the venue itself.
4. Take salespeople on a memorable trip
Show your salespeople you appreciate them by gifting them a trip that coincides with National Salesperson Day, or announce it on the day and then travel in January or February the following year.
The trip may be business-oriented, such as a team-building retreat for top salespeople or a special event run by Tony Robbins.
A vacation to a chosen destination can also work, like this trip to Mallorca that luxury shopping brand Stilpunkte organized:
If it’s a company retreat, senior management will likely attend. For vacation trips, give salespeople the option to bring their families along at their own expense.
Salespeople must understand that this trip is a perk, not a regular vacation day. A holiday that eats up valuable paid time off won’t feel as much of a treat.
Most trips last between one and three days, which is enough time to recharge the team’s batteries but not so long that sales suffer.
Budget around $500–$1,000 per salesperson plus flights. Luxury trips can cost more, particularly if you’re flying business class.
5. Praise team members publicly with a social media shout-out
Every National Salesperson Day, some companies celebrate their salespeople’s accomplishments on social media.
You can give a shout-out to your whole sales team or just one or two top performers. The latter is more of an incentive for sales performance, while the former is better for overall team morale.
Your post should contain a headshot of someone from sales, with a few sentences that meaningfully communicate how much you appreciate their work toward company goals.
Here’s an example from ECM:
If you don’t have photos of your salespeople, ask reps to provide their own or factor in the cost and scheduling of a photoshoot.
An alternative format is to tell a story about a meaningful interaction a customer had with a salesperson. In this case, you’ll want to anonymize personal details.
Whichever format you choose, be mindful not to overshare sensitive financial data about the company. For example, avoid disclosing your company’s total sales revenue on social media.
Shout-out posts work well on every social media site, although especially suited to Instagram’s visual format and LinkedIn’s business audience.
While you can create one post and share the same content everywhere, most companies choose to adapt the post to each platform’s style and needs.
6. Provide tools to streamline your sales team’s work
Investing in sales tools shows your reps you care about them and want to make their work easier.
Sometimes a salesperson will repeatedly ask for a specific tool. National Salesperson Day is a good opportunity to show that you’ve listened to their feedback and purchased the subscription they’ve been requesting.
Popular sales tools include:
Apollo – helps sales teams with B2B prospecting by combining contact data with outbound sequencing
Mailshake – makes it easy to send personalized, automated sales email sequences at scale and track engagement
Gong – records and analyzes sales calls to surface insights, coach reps and improve sales velocity
Calendly – removes scheduling back-and-forth by letting prospects book meetings based on real-time availability.
DocuSign – speeds up deal closure by enabling secure, legally binding electronic signatures from anywhere
Since sales reps need a central location to manage leads, investing in a customer relationship management tool (CRM) like Pipedrive is also a good way to show you value their work.
How Pipedrive makes a salesperson’s job less stressful
A central data hub is less stressful for salespeople than jumping between multiple spreadsheets and email threads.
Pipedrive in action: Framery switched from managing leads in spreadsheets to using Pipedrive, centralizing all its sales data in one place. By streamlining follow-ups and tracking, it increased lead generation by 800%.
Pipedrive’s intuitive Kanban view gives reps a clear view of what stage each deal is in, helping them know which deals to prioritize and close sales more quickly.
Salespeople can segment deals by criteria such as industry or company size so they don’t get in each other’s way during the sales process. This makes it easy for salespeople to stick to their assigned segment.
Pipedrive also automates routine tasks that salespeople commonly dislike, such as:
Data entry when creating a new deal
Logging communication with clients
Sending reminders and follow-ups
Generating reports to send to management
Pipedrive’s AI reduces the number of decisions salespeople need to make each day by suggesting which deals to prioritize, which actions to take and how to improve sales performance.
It also enables numerous integrations with sales tools, including Apollo, Mailshake, Calendly and DocuSign.
7. Provide professional development to boost sales careers
Sales professionals are growth-oriented, so they’ll appreciate you paying for them to attend training, workshops or coaching sessions.
Sessions can be online or in person and help salespeople:
Learn new sales tactics
Get better at overcoming sales objections
Improve soft skills like active listening
Understand an important sales tool more deeply
An example of the latter is Next Level Strategies, LLC, which trains salespeople in how to get the most out of Pipedrive’s CRM.
Individual coaching allows salespeople to progress more quickly than group coaching or a workshop. Keep in mind that it’s also more expensive, especially if the coach has extensive sales experience, so expect to pay $150–$500 per hour.
You could announce on National Salesperson Day that salespeople will receive professional development, then schedule sessions over the subsequent months
Final thoughts
From throwing a party to public praise on social media, there are lots of ways to celebrate your sales team on National Salesperson Day.
There’s no single best way to appreciate your salespeople, so it matters less which idea you choose and more that you pick something meaningful to them.
If you’re looking to show appreciation by making your sales team’s work easier, Pipedrive’s all-in-one CRM stands out with its automation and intuitive visual interface.
Sign up for a 14-day free trial to help your salespeople manage leads more efficiently.
