Sales Compensation Blog

The old saying - you can’t see the forest for the trees applies to many things in life when you get lost in the minutia but did you realize it can apply to your sales compensation plans?  With your commissions plans it is easy to lose site of the big picture because you are so distracted by the small details that surround your monthly commission calculations. Once your sales compensation plans are rolled out, you start focusing on the details

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Based on the latest poll from Cornerstone Software, 100% of the participants spend 2 or more hours a month answering questions from their sales reps about their commission plans and payment calculations. For every manager who answers the question, there is a rep that spent time formulating the question and looking for the answer, so this time is often doubled for the company.

Imagine if you could spend that time discussing sales strategies and

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If you are in sales, you likely do your fair share of travelling and probably like me you want to experience the best each city has to offer.  Recently on a trip to Philly, we asked our cab driver what we must do while we were there.  He pointed out that Philly has a Target and Walmart.  Giving it another try, we asked where we must eat.  I was hoping he would weigh in on the great debate on whether it was Geno’s or Pat’s that had the best

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We know that the process of putting together your sales compensation plans is a stressful, anxiety provoking, dreadful ordeal.  Yes I said, you hate it, it’s the worst time of year for you, worse than facing a family reunion.  Yet, your sales compensation plans are a critical vehicle on your company’s road to success.  So what’s the problem?

1)     You are uncertain.  A crystal ball is not going to help you with your plans.  How much will

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As you know by now, we have a group of runners here at the office. When we run together, we tend to try to keep the pace the same as our running partner. Recently I have been running alone and I got to thinking about running and sales. Running with a partner or a stop watch keeps me on pace. Running by myself, I tend to run how I feel that day. This one day I ran the first part of it much too fast, so I thought I could cruise for the next bit

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I was recently in the trail mix isle at the local store with a friend. As he reached for the healthy trail mix with nuts and fruit, I was carefully inspecting each of the bags of chocolate and nut trail mix. Notice I said chocolate first! You got it; the bag with the most chocolate will end up coming home with me. My friend said, “Teanna, eating that trail mix is just an excuse for you to eat chocolate. What happens to the nuts when all the

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We enjoy taking a break mid-day and going out for a run around our beautiful spot in New Hampshire.    In the summer we like to hit the track at the school around the corner to do speed workouts.  We find that it is difficult to push ourselves when we are running through the backstreets of Nashua, it is a lot easier to push our time on a track.  Why is that?  With a track the distances are very clearly marked, we know exactly what a quarter mile

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What is fear? Fear is defined in the dictionary as a feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger. Does this describe the feeling you have about the success of your commission plans?

Let’s set the stage. You’ve just rolled out your new commission plans. You talked with each of your reps, explained the plan, and addressed all their concerns. Now you sit back and hope that it will all work out but you are

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Albert Einstein once said “Insanity:  Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.  If you expect your same commission plans to deliver different results this year that would be insane according to Albert.

When the bulk of your reps are below quota then it is time to evaluate your sales commission plans.. The worst case scenario is one I see too often, keeping the sales compensation plans the same and expecting

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I am a huge fan of Microsoft Excel because it is so easy to use and so powerful, BUT it is not always the right tool for the job.  You wouldn’t use a spreadsheet for your CRM would you??   If you are using it for calculating your commissions then the spreadsheet cells are more like jail cells, they are restricting you, holding you back from doing more with your sales force and incarcerating your business growth. 

Here are 5 reasons why Excel

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