Introduction Salespeople are often internally driven and self-motivated (Srivastava and Rangarajan, 2008) and are increasingly becoming consultants who sell value-added services (Smith and Rupp, 2003). Nowadays, more and more industrial companies employ sales engineers (SEs) and therefore represent an emerging class of sales knowledge workers (Darr, 2002). I will first talk about my experience at Festo, before briefly addressing some related theories on motivation. Was there a disconnect between theory and business as I knew it? If so, I will try to identify it and explain why Festo's incentives have failed me. Finally, I will suggest how Festus should have motivated his SE, based on the theory discussed. What is an SE? Despite having studied engineering, I mainly worked as a salesman. So, I can ask: what is an SE? A salesperson with strong technical knowledge of the industry they are selling. Furthermore, an SE could be defined as a technical sales consultant or a knowledge worker (Darr, 2002). These ideas somewhat extend Lidstone's (1995) definition of a technical salesperson: someone who sells highly engineered industrial products, equipment or components, places great importance on their technical know-how but is often preoccupied with technical details and tends to forget the his skills. /his job is to sell.SE at FestoFesto Argentina had approximately 20 SEs (2007) nationwide (out of a workforce of 120), half of which were more than 400 miles from its headquarters. Needless to mention, each SE had a different emotional background (psychological characteristics), engineering field (industrial, electronic, mechanical) and socioeconomic situation (some married, some young and single; middle-aged, wealthy, working class, etc. . ...... middle of paper ....../2010].Pritchard, R. and Ashwood, E. (2008) Managing Motivation: A Manager's Guide to Diagnosing and Improving Motivation New York: Taylor & . Francis Group, LLC. Smith, A. and Rupp, W. (2003). An examination of emerging strategy and sales performance: motivation, chaotic change and organizational structure Marketing & Intelligence, 21/3, pp.156-167 . Smyth and Murphy (1969). Understanding the salespeople's "feedback-satisfaction" link: What role does perception play? work?. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 23/3, pp. 151–160. Steers, R., & Porter, L. (1987 Motivation and Work Behavior, 4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Inc. Stewart, G. (1994). Successful Sales Management, 3rd Edition. London: Pitman Publishing.