You can create the best work environment in the world, but the reality is that everyone works for themselves. The world of sales, however, is a lot different to many other industries. Without the right motivation, productivity will fall off a cliff. 

The loss of motivation

There tends to be a predictable curve when it comes to most sales staff. They’ll start off with a lot of enthusiasm but it eventually begins to taper off. Keeping that enthusiasm going is a challenge for any company as you still want to drive sales. 

This can mean hiring more staff with all the expenditure involved, despite the fact you already have all the staff you need.

The better solution

Companies can be hesitant to give out financial incentives as they feel as though they are giving away money. In reality, the old adage rings true: you need to spend money to make money. A fair and balanced incentive structure will lead to better results. 

It’s not just effort that will be improved but also happiness. A more harmonious workplace is one that will naturally be more productive. Not only that, but other expenditures such as recruitment will be vastly reduced. 

Not just money

It’s not just cash that gets sales teams incentivised, it’s prizes too. Running competitions will bring out everyone’s competitive side as they strive to be the winner. Sales staff respond a lot better to positive rather than negative stimulus.

This is where sales goals software can help you in more ways than one. You can make sales performance goals fun rather than being an unachievable target. It helps to create an overall work environment that works harder and therefore earns more money for you. 

Keep everyone happy

While it might seem counter-intuitive to give away money, the overall effect is more sales being made. Sales management software is able to help achieve those results. If you need to update your sales commission software, contact Commissionly today.

A sales compensation plan is the most crucial driver of success in any sales operation. Therefore, you have to develop it strategically to promote the right sales and evoke the desired practices from your sales representatives.

Though a perfect plan will look different for every organisation, you will need to follow these necessary steps and best practices to create a unique, strategic sales compensation plan:

Establish a business objective

A perfect sales compensation plan should be strategically aligned with the objectives of the organisation. Thus, you must first identify your business objectives before setting up a sales compensation management system. You will need to work with the executive stakeholders to identify the strategic goals of your business. This cooperation will help you create a compensation plan that emphasises measuring and incentivising performance to support the organisation’s objectives.

Identify the roles of sales

With the right business strategy in place, it’s time to perfect your sales force. Point out the sales roles that you will add to the commission plans. Each sales role in your organisation will require a specific compensation plan.

Current customer-focused sales roles include accounting managers, customer success managers, sales development representatives who focus on prospecting and account executives who focus on sales acquisition. Within these roles, you can develop senior and junior positions to fairly compensate your employees.

Define and align your sales objectives

There are many goals you might want to achieve. For example, when defining your sales objectives, you may need to expand the market share by a certain amount, introduce new products or increase revenue by a specific amount. You must, therefore, identify all your sales objectives so you can produce the right incentives to aid those initiatives and ensure your compensation plan succeeds.

Your sales goals should also be closely affiliated with your specified business goals. By tactically aligning your sales and business objectives, you can make sure your salesforce is impelling success at an organisational level.

Determine the pay structure

Aligning your sales and business goals can also help you drill down into the particular structure of the compensation plan. To do this, you have to determine the pay mix, target pay and upside potential for every sales role.

If you’re trying to see a difference in your business returns, then what better place to focus on than your sales? It sounds simple, but managing sales properly can be an arduous task, as every business owner knows only too well. There’s just so much to do – monitoring KPIs, distributing leads, proper sales performance management… the list goes on.

Using professional software may well be the way to combat your sales management troubles. These tools can give your company an edge over the competition while unlocking limitless opportunities for growth and success.

The best of these software can not only aid you in tasks such as budgeting and commission tracking, they can also help you decide how to set sales targets and quotas to achieve future business goals. Here are the top four benefits your business can gain by investing in quality sales management software:

1. Proper account regulation

Your sales management system can serve as a useful database that holds together all of your business information and sales accounts. This will allow you to handle as many accounts as your business needs without any risk or hassle.

Strategically managing your accounts this way will also help you identify accounts that promise the most revenue and have them ordered to suit your priorities.

2. Commission tracking

Commission tracking software is one of the most useful features you can expect from a sales management system. This is because the more employees you have, the more you come to realise that using different spreadsheets to track every last sales commission is just not a practical solution.

Using professional software will provide you with great options such as a sales commission dashboard and sales compensation calculator to keep your business transactions flowing smoothly and error-free.

3. Create sales goals

A sales management software system will allow your sales reps to focus completely on making more sales without burning energy on administrative tasks. With the system holding all the information they need, the sales team will be efficient when selling products and services to target consumers. And with access to sales goals software, they will be more likely to succeed when deciding on how to best approach the company’s sales performance goals.

4. Reports and analysis

Using sales management software will help you track the success of every sales and marketing campaign launched by the business. This will tell you if your efforts have produced enough sales conversions and traffic to meet your goals. And by studying these reports, you can identify any shortcomings present in your strategy when initiating a new campaign.

When it comes to sales performance management, you need to be holding regular meetings with your sales team. It helps you to identify when there are problems with your sales team and guide them to meet their sales goals more effectively.

However, meetings often have a reputation for being a waste of time. Normally this is because they aren’t properly managed. Yet they have the potential to really help your sales team. So, here are some tips to make your sales meetings more effective and to help staff make their sales performance goals:

1. Use data to back up claims

When in a meeting, you need to use real data to highlight points. This is where sales commission software can be really helpful. Good software will highlight how much your staff have earned and what they need to do to meet sales targets.

When people can see their performance in numbers, it can help them to identify the need to change their habits/working efforts to succeed.

2. Have a plan for the meeting

When you create sales goals, you often have a plan of how your staff can achieve it. The same is true for meetings. When you have a set plan for the meeting, including what you want to bring up and what actions you want to happen afterwards, you’ll find the meetings will be more productive.

Another way to improve meeting productivity is to share the details of what you want to go through at the meeting before the start. This can be done via email and allows staff to prepare their responses.

3. Ensure meetings are two-way conversations

When one person is talking all the time in a meeting, those listening can often become distracted. This can harm the uptake of what you’re saying and therefore the meeting time is wasted. Instead, make the meeting a time for constructive conversation that goes both ways.

Two-way conversations are a great way for your staff to see meetings as a valuable aspect of their work that improves their work.

Conclusion

Meetings are an important aspect of communicating to staff and help make sales targets. They are complicated to run, but with the right mindset from you and your team, you can ensure they’re a productive part of your working week.

It’s a fact of life that a happy workforce is a more efficient workforce, and one thing that can affect morale in a sales environment is inaccurate data leading to not getting paid the correct commission. 

With a sales commission dashboard feature, your sales reps will be able to track their commission in real time.

While all business managers will look at targets and goals in relation to the quantity and quality of sales, the majority of sales reps will be focused on their individual pay packet. That may sound like bad business, but if you have a clear commission structure you don’t need to have your reps overly care about your business as the pay will be more than enough to motivate them.

This is where good commission tracking software can come into its own. It can be all well and good having a well-organised commission structure in place, with the benefits which can come from that. Though if the data is inaccurate and reps aren’t paid what they feel is correct, all the good work implementing that commission structure in the first place is for nothing. Having the statistics monitored for you in real time and with accurate data will help you improve morale.

It is another fact that all businesses run on data, none more so than in a sales environment, thus if you have more accurate data it will improve your business. Commissionly offers this while also helping create your sales goals. It will then keep track of where you are in relation to those sales targets while at the same time improving morale, with reps knowing they are going to get paid for the work they do.

The reps will be able to see where they are and will be able to look at what they need to do to push that little further if they are short of where they would like their commission to be. Accurate data at your and your reps’ fingertips in the dashboard will help them push for more sales and hence help your business.

The world of B2B selling is fast-paced, and can change rapidly. For this reason, sales training and enablement have become as important as they have ever been. In this landscape, too many companies are not quite hitting the mark when it comes to how prepared their sales teams are.

Where companies fall short

A survey by the Sales Management Association covered 111 companies and more than 80,000 salespeople. It discovered that as little as 43% feel that their sales training and development programmes are effective.

A core component of effective sales enablement is content, and many companies are doing a poor job here too. Reps must have quick and easy access to relevant content such as white papers, case studies, battlecards and updated playbooks if they are to maximise their effectiveness.

A study by CSO Insights found that only around 1/3 of organisations have a genuine content strategy.

Preparation is key

This poor preparation means trouble for the customer experience. The modern enterprise buyer arrives having already done a depth of research, and their expectation will be speed and convenience. If a sales rep lacks the necessary preparation to answer questions or provide essential information, the customer will be unimpressed and move on, and your company loses an opportunity.

For your sales reps to provide the best customer experience possible, there must be a comprehensive approach to sales enablement. The traditional sales ‘boot camp’ simply isn’t enough; you need ongoing digital training that accelerates the ramp up for new sales reps. Sales processes are imparted through personalised learning paths, virtual training and videos to shorten the sales cycle and enhance win rates.

Looking more broadly

In addition to improving enablement for your internal sales force, your partners need to be enabled through a role-based platform that gives them access to material. And you need to integrate these tools with your own sales performance goals to be truly effective. You need common points of contact throughout the lead-to-cash process, ensuring that enablement doesn’t slip through the net.

By improving sales enablement for your reps, you will ensure that your sales people have everything they need to deliver an excellent customer experience.

Are you keen to boost the effectiveness of your sales team by taking the sales performance management route? Then having an effective approach to help you get there is key. With the right approach, individuals will be able to work towards achieving your organisation’s goals and objectives.

Some success factors for sales performance management are:

Regular feedback

Both managers and employees require regular feedback, for instance, conversations about their performance and development. Feedback should highlight areas in which they excel and areas where more effort is required. This helps in supporting continuous learning in the workplace. Meetings should also be fairly balanced, rather than purely criticising employees. Focus on acknowledging their strengths to make them feel more valued and appreciated.

Altering the conversation

Most sales reviews are centred on forecasts and day to day performance. These short term interventions alone are not enough to improve performance. More emphasis should be placed on improving individuals’ skills and abilities through constant training and coaching. Listening to what employees have to say and providing constructive criticism also helps them perform their job more successfully.

Having appropriate goals to reflect the changing business environment

Sales environments are dynamic. As such, there is a constant need to adapt to the changing circumstances. For instance, acquiring a new product will attract new competitors. Consequently, a new strategic plan has to be in place. Every person should know how they fit into the new business landscape. Individual expectations should be constantly reviewed and communicated as and when necessary.

Goal transparency

Effective sales performance management should focus on the different dynamics of a team. A performing team is the sum total of its individual members. With well-aligned goals, it will be easy for each team member to understand how they can help one another better. Sharing ideals and feedback in a team (not just in a management team) makes for a more collaborative and inclusive environment for the whole team to succeed.

Productive reviews require preparation

Performance discussions are only productive when both parties prepare well. For employers, performance appraisals present the perfect opportunity to listen to employees. They should be allowed to voice their concerns and point out specific areas where they require more support say, for example, through special training.

Are you ready to take your organisation to the next level? Start by mapping your sales enablement journey. Always remember that organisations that implement effective sales performance management elevate themselves above their competitors.

One of the primary reasons a business experiences failure or a loss of profit is because they set sales targets that didn’t come in to fruition.

The most common mistake companies and business owners are making is using data from a previous year to simply estimate future growth. This method of prediction not only fails to include any potential variables that may pop up throughout the year, but it can also put unnecessary pressure on staff to achieve large and unrealistic goals. 

There are various guides on how to set sales goals and quotas, but the best way to consider setting future targets is to consider the below:

1. Economic factors

A company needs to delve into their industry and do a little research before setting sales goals and quotas. They need to determine if they are operating in a volatile industry and what their competitors are up to that may impact their results.

2. Current business situation

Every business runs slightly differently, and it is important to consider things that impact revenue. It may be a seasonal operation, or it may be a company that relies solely on referral. Upcoming marketing and advertising plans also play a large part in setting future sales targets and quotas. 

3. The lack of a rolling forecast

Many annuals sales and quota predictions fall short because a company has not implemented a rolling forecast. Rolling forecasts provide detail into specific sales and quotas throughout the year and can be measured against the current business situation and economic factors in those times.

The implementation of a rolling forecast is great for staff morale as it shifts focus from a large sales goal to a more supportive and motivational model. 

When it comes to being realistic about future results, it is always best to call in an objective review or service such as Commissionly. As the first cloud-based sales commission and sales compensations app, Commissionly uses high-tech data analysis tools that can provide results and predictions in mere minutes. 

The easy to use sales commission management software is user-friendly and accessible to all stakeholders and business owners in real time, from wherever they may be located.

The boss is walking past the workspace of a member of their team. They stop for a moment, then say: ‘I wanted to say good job with that contract’. Well, everyone loves praise, but the individual might have completed four contracts in the last three days. So which one? And were the others disappointing? 

Confused? People can be. In circumstances such as this, offering praise could actually be a demotivator, when entirely the opposite was the leader’s intention. To praise effectively, here are simple guidelines to follow:

1. Specific piece of performance

If the boss, or team leader, is able to describe exactly what the good performance looks like, then the recipient knows they are being paid proper attention. Unlike the quote at the start of this blog, how about: ‘I wanted to say congratulations for closing that contract for 4,000 units with Smith & Company’.

2. Add valid reasons for the praise

The salesperson now knows what you are talking about. Of course they will know that they performed well, but now you can let them appreciate that you do too, by adding a positive commentary on the achievement: ‘I know that they are difficult to tie down and like to take their time when deciding, especially when the directors are in different locations’. 

3. Be quick to deliver praise

The team member receiving the praise will soon be moving on to other challenges, seeking other orders. If the boss only congratulates them a week after a specific deal is concluded, such praise has lost its potency. It actually suggests a fairly casual approach to assessing their work or performance. For maximum relevance, praise should be delivered as close to the performance as possible. 

4. Praising when not present

The giver and the recipient of the praise might not be based in the same location. In this case, the same process can be completed remotely, either by telephone, email or text. The last two could also be used as a follow-up to face-to-face praise. This allows individuals to share the good news with colleagues, family and friends – adding to its motivational value.

Using our sales compensation and comission tracking software keeps the leader fully informed of individual performance; offering opportunities to deliver specific praise whenever it’s due. Contact us now to discuss how valuable it could prove to be for your small or medium sized business.

While it’s true that Excel and other open-source spreadsheet apps are useful for collecting, tracking and manipulating data, the truth is that these programs were never designed to be a catch-all for all of your company needs – and they’re far from being the best choice for processing or tracking sales commissions.

Yes, Excel can number crunch and perform powerful mathematical equations. However, commissions processing is more than just mathematics. Your sales performance management needs to be accurate, allowing you to identify things like missed commission payments or missed targets. It should help you understand how to create sales goals and implement sales performance management.

If you’re still using Excel, here are just a handful of reasons why you should consider switching to sales commission software :

1. Spreadsheets are error-prone

While apps like Excel or OpenOffice allow you to use custom formulas to help calculate sales commission, there’s no accounting for the fact that human error can and does happen. Incorrect data entry, accidental deletion, and forgetting to save (auto-save isn’t implemented in older versions of Office) can all cause huge issues. These errors can be eliminated by switching to commission tracking software.

2. Spreadsheets are time-consuming

Why spend hours processing commissions in a spreadsheet when you could do the same task in next to no time with dedicated commission tracking software? In a worst-case scenario, the administrator of the commissions spreadsheet could even start rushing things to get the job done quicker, resulting in the sort of errors discussed in the previous point. Ultimately, this means that employees could miss out on their commission – and this could cause arguments or upset company morale.

3. Sales performance management is important

There may be instances where you want to audit the past payments you’ve received – and there’s really no way to achieve that with a spreadsheet. Sales commission software allows you to check monthly payments, commission percentages and individual sales rep payments.

If you’re currently using a spreadsheet to calculate commission, and you’d like a simpler, more efficient way to manage sales performance, why not consider Commissionly?

You can even benefit from a free trial with a demonstration on how to improve your sales performance management. With a host of other powerful features, like sales territory management, sales quota management and sales objective management, you’ll soon find yourself wondering how you ever managed with a simple spreadsheet.