Building a sales performance management strategy could sound intimidating and like a lot of pressure if you’re unsure of what to do. You don’t want to come across as overbearing or pushy – but you also don’t want to seem floundering or lackadaisical. However, ensuring that you find the right balance is easier than you expect.

Here’s how you can manage the sales performances of your employees effectively.

1. Assert your goals from the get-go

From the beginning, be clear with your employees on what your expectations are, regarding their sales performances. What is their daily target sales quota? How long do you expect them to spend with each client? What should their priorities be? Laying all of this out on the table means your employees know what you want. This means that it’s easier for you to track inconsistencies because an expected timeline and/or goals has/have been established.

2. Remember to schedule events and goals

So often, people rely solely on their memory. This can backfire quickly because the human brain is not as effective at retaining information as, say, a piece of intuitive management software. Keeping track of your to-do list means that you can reflect upon each one as and after it’s passed, meaning you can manage performances and outcomes with ease.

3. Be a leader – not just a boss

If you want to truly understand why an employee is falling behind in their sales performance targets, often the best stance is not to be intimidating. Instead, try adopting more of a mentor figure. Ask them why they think they’re failing, what you can do to help. This will build a rapport in the office, and help your employees feel more at ease. When they feel like this, they’re likely to be more confident and perform better.

4. Use Commissionly

Commissionly is a flexible, advanced platform that will help you keep track of, and manage, all your sales performance targets. Not only this, but you can use Commissionly to send out questionnaires to your employees and clients in an unintrusive manner, gleaning results quickly and effectively. Commissionly can be tailored to the individual needs of your SME, growing with you as your business grows.

What is incentive compensation?

Incentive compensation is a form of flexible compensation, in which how much an employee earns varies depending on how many sales they make and how this benefits the company as a whole. Through incentive compensation, the goals of individual salespeople and the goals of the company are aligned, resulting in improved business outcomes.

Incentives can vary from business to business and can include bonuses, commissions, SPIFs (Sales Performance Incentive Funds), prizes and recognition of employees’ achievements. A successful incentive compensation plan is structured in such a way that employees’ rewards will increase as they make more sales and raise revenue for the business.

The benefits of incentive compensation

• Increase in sales

The goal of incentive compensation is to motivate employees to work harder to meet and, hopefully, surpass their sales goals, therefore boosting company profits. Salespeople are financially motivated, so the prospect of compensation based on improved performance is guaranteed to result in more sales.

• Positive working relationships

The success of incentive compensation is based on employees and employers working as a team to drive the business towards success. Some businesses also organise their salespeople into teams to work towards a common goal, fostering positive working relationships between colleagues and encouraging them to help each other.

• Reduction in turnover

If an employee feels dissatisfied with their work and feels as though they aren’t being recognised or rewarded for their achievements, they are likely to move on to another job that more befits their personal goals. Employee satisfaction depends largely on whether their hard work is adequately rewarded, and incentive compensation is the perfect way to achieve this.

How can sales compensation software help?

Sales compensation software simplifies the compensation process, improving automation and providing transparency for you and your employees so you can work together to boost your business’s profits. Get in touch with Commissionly today and find out how we can streamline your sales compensation plan.

The norm in business is for companies to pay their employees a basic wage. This is then built on with performance-related bonuses depending on how the employee has been performing. However, with the emergence of the gig economy, this is changing. Employees are taking jobs that pay by the task rather than hourly, which can be a great way to make sure your workforce is effective.

Workers are starting to prefer these jobs for a few reasons.

Wanting to earn as much money as possible

Firstly, employees are more likely to give their all if they know they’ll be rewarded for it. Why would a worker put in as much effort as possible if they’d be earning the same at the end of the week?

Hourly or salaried workers have less reason to push themselves. On the other hand, commission workers need to work with more focus, for the extra income. Essentially, they can earn themselves a bonus by pushing themselves as hard as they can.

As earnings are in their own hands, employees find themselves striving to do more since they directly see the benefit.

Using commission alongside salary

Whilst a workforce based on commission can be effective, combining it with a salary can bring added benefits.

When employees who receive a commission only, often feel under pressure and stressed about hitting targets. A salaried worker, on the other hand, can feel financially secure and not need to worry about completing a set amount of tasks.

Employees can instead be offered a salary with commissions as a bonus. This not only makes sure the worker feels happy and secure. Additionally, workers can have the incentive provided by a commission. In this case, they’re not only working hard for a living, but they can see the benefit they gain by getting that extra sale.

If you’re interested in a system of sales-based rewards, Commissionly can help to fulfil your business potential. Commissionly provides real-time sales data to encourage and challenge your team to achieve. The commission management software can help you to forecast and plan your finances, organising your business for the foreseeable future.

Get in touch at Commissionly for a quote, and our friendly expert team will assist you in setting up the right tracking system for you.

Sales commission software is an invaluable tool for both businesses and individuals. It helps business owners to calculate, with ease, how much they owe their sales personnel. But the right commission tracking software can do so much more. It can also be used to incentivise a sales team.

There are many opportunities for salespeople who rely on earning a commission. However, they must know where they stand at all times. After all, for many, it determines what food they will be putting on their plates. It also means being able to pay bills on time. In short, their commission is their lifeblood.

Sales commission software sets and measures markers

For some salespeople, sales commission software allows them to concentrate their efforts on earning a liveable income. For others, it represents a marker. However, to the ambitious salesperson, that marker is not a goal. It is something to be bettered each time around. It is an incentive to raise the bar – to sell more.

Real-time reporting

To work well as an incentive tool, sales commission software must report in real-time. It means that salesmen and women can see where they are at earnings-wise, at any point in time. It gives them the spur they need to achieve their target income.

Comprehensive flexibility

But there is something else too that good sales commission software needs. It needs to be comprehensibly flexible. Most people like challenges. Provided of course they are achievable. This in itself makes them a great incentive as non-achievable challenges actually disincentivize employees.

Target setting

The best commission calculation software must have a user-friendly interface and be easily programmable. From the company point of view, it makes target setting a cinch. It enables attractive commissions to be set on certain categories of products.

This has two advantages:

1. The first is that it concentrates sales efforts on product categories that need it. Therefore, businesses remain in close control of their targets.
2. The second is for the sales staff. Moving targets around through commission biasing creates new challenges. Challenges motivate the sales team, giving them the determination and will to achieve.

Satisfying both ends of the spectrum

If you’re looking for the best sales commission platform to increase sales and motivate your salesforce, try Commissionly. It achieves the best results at both ends of the spectrum.

A career in sales has many advantages; high potential earnings, company bonuses, and many more, however, it can be a very demanding job from day-to-day. With rejection becoming a part of daily life, a career in sales is about more than making phone calls, it is about using your best skills to draw in a customer and close a sale. You can incorporate these helpful tips into your sales goals, and increase your earning potential.

Listen, don’t talk

Any good salesman will tell you that the more you talk, the more chances you are giving the customer to say no. One of the key parts of being an exceptional sales professional is customer engagement and rapport building; find out what your customer likes, what they look forward to. Use this information to build a relationship and introduce your product as lucrative, based on the information they have given you. The more you listen, the more ammunition you will have to persuade them into a sale, and the more respected they will feel by you, for taking the time to listen.

Gatekeepers are not the enemy

Within many sales roles, a common obstacle will be a gatekeeper. Typically a receptionist or assistant, this person holds a lot more power than they are given credit for, as it is ultimately their decision if you get to talk to the desired individual. In order to pass the gatekeeper, you must befriend them. Find out what their role is within the business, find out what they enjoy to do, and use this information to be passed over to your desired contact.

Unique selling points

In order to succeed within sales, you must create the illusion of need within your customer, and you do this by highlighting unique selling points of your product. Research your competitors, what do you offer that they do not? Use that as an advantage and highlight this to your customers, and stress the importance of these unique features. Never apologize for the price of something, use the unique selling points to justify the price point and press the importance of the product you are selling.

Commissions can be a major part of small to medium enterprises (SMEs). They are a highly effective way of making sure that employees are always doing their best for the company since their pay is directly linked to sales. However, to manage commission payments effectively, specific software is required. To run your company most efficiently you need to make sure this software is a perfect fit for your business.

Here are the features for the perfect commission software for small to medium enterprises:

Sales splits

For any company where more than one person is involved in any sale, sales splits are important. Without this feature, commissions would inevitably go to the person who finalised the sale. However, a sale can be more complicated than that and requires more specifics to properly manage commissions. Multiple team members will probably have engaged with potential clients in order to get to the point of them making a purchase. So only rewarding one person can often be unfair and will have a negative on the motivation of the team. With sales splits, different employees can earn different shares of the commission, so everyone gets paid what they are due.

Manager overrides

If your SME has multiple branches, manager overrides can be necessary. Since each manager is responsible for their own team, they should be rewarded when that team does well. The best commission software will account for this and allow managers to receive a share of their teams’ sales. The best managers will earn more, and everyone will be encouraged to get the team to do better since it’s in everyone’s best interest.

Dashboard & reporting

The best commission software for SMEs will need to account for a company’s need for in-depth financial information. Smaller companies are always looking for room to grow.

In-depth reporting means that SMEs can look for areas of strength or weakness in their company and adjust accordingly, rewarding those that are doing well whilst spotting any issues. Tools to analyse business performance are always important, and good commission software should provide this.

Ultimately, one commissioning software guarantees all of this and more. With Commissionly, your small to medium business can ensure that everyone is fairly paid whilst providing the resources to grow. If you believe your company needs commissioning software like this, contact us, book a demo or start the free trial. Our reliable team of experts can advise on the right package for you, and make sure that your small to medium business can thrive.

Regardless of your company size, sales performance goals should be an intrinsic part of day-to-day activities within the sales department. Without sales performance goals, the sales team will remain unfocused and undriven – implementing such goals will encourage hard work with a great payoff.

What types of sales performance goals should you be incorporating into your company as we launch into the new year?

Reduce cycle time

Cycle time is the amount of time taken for a deal to be closed. Whether it be a transaction or negotiation, you should be aiming to have as short a cycle time as possible. The sales performance goal of reducing cycle times is essential – this is because it ensures your team are working at optimal levels.

Improve customer retention

As your business grows, so too will your target audience change. One sales performance goal that should be set, is to improve your customer retention. More importantly, you want to demonstrate to your clients that, even as your company evolves and changes, their loyalty will be worth it.

Increase sales by achievable amounts

Whether you choose to do it on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, your sales team should be focused ultimately on increasing sales. Whatever specific sales performance goal is set regarding this, make sure the target is tangible and achievable. For instance, setting a sales performance goal of improving sales by 8% by the end of Q1 is achievable – an 80% increase by the end of Q1 is not.

Whether an SME or an independent business, why not decide on your new year sales performance goals using the SMART method? No matter how you choose what goals to set for 2020 and beyond, consider Commissionly to see them through.

Commissionly is a reliable, intuitive platform that can help you motivate and pay your workforce as and when you need. Through quick surveys, you can gauge workers’ enthusiasm and drawbacks; additionally, through Commissionly, you can set sales performance goals and strategically plan how to ensure such goals are met.

If you’re a small to medium enterprise (SME) then you’ll know that every sales target and quota matters and that setting achievable goals is vital to success.

Communicate sales expectations between employees

Whether you’re the manager of the business or an employee, communication is key. Studies have endlessly proven that excellent communication in the workplace drives sales. This is because it creates a rapport between staff members, improving respect and an understanding for each others’ roles.

Therefore, communicating your sales expectations between one another will allow the team to feel bonded and more on the same page – increasing the drive to succeed.

Consider all the factors when setting sales targets

As an SME, you have to get sales targets right. Too low, and employees may start to slack as they feel they exceed expectations. On the flipside, set too high and employees will feel dejected and have low morale. To set effective sales targets, consider the following elements:

• Realistic timelines
  Should you set daily sales targets, weekly, monthly, yearly? If you set a daily sales target, remember that this will be different to a weekly one, and a weekly one to a monthly – and so forth. Adjust expectations accordingly.

• Revenues
  Calculate the revenues needed for the business to succeed. Also, don’t feel let down if these are more varied than you expected. A path of income is income nonetheless. Remember to input all revenues into your sales targets if you want accurate outcomes.

Look at what sales quota suits your SME the best

If you want to drive profit, you have to implement an effective sales quota. Here are the four most common types of sales quota, and what they can be used for.

1. Sales quota based on activity
   Best for SMEs with a variety of touch-points, this style of quota works by measuring how much of an activity an employee does. For example, this could be the NUMBER of sales in a day, HOW MANY calls an employee takes, etc.
   
2. Sales quota based on volume
   Ideal for those SMEs focusing on growing revenue, a volume-based quota focuses on just that – the volume. It tallies up the total generated revenue over a given amount of time. Additionally, it may look at the number of units sold.
   
3. Sales quota based on cost
   If you’re an SME focused on expense control, this is the sales quota for you. It revolves around looking at an employee’s effectiveness at reducing costs. Such factors that implement into this include time efficiency, time invested, and additional opportunities taken.
   
4. Sales quota based on profit
   This is the best quota for the SMEs that offer a range of marketable products or services. This is because a quota based on profit looks at the sales performance of employees, therefore working best when an employee has multiple things to sell.

If you’re part of an SME and wondering how to set sales targets and quotas, consider Commissionly. Commissionly is a platform that aims to simplify the inner cogs of a business. Whether it be ways to pay, motivating your team, or integrating a new aspect, Commissionly does it all. As an SME, any help you can get could make a world of difference. Commissionly is the smart, affordable hand that you can take while going on your business venture.