Sales Compensation Blog

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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I am afraid of heights. Well not exactly, more specifically I am afraid of falling.   So when this summer my youngest son decided to climb a rock wall and I could see he was getting nervous half-way up I yelled “You can do it!”   Wait, what am I doing here on the ground telling him what he can do? I need to show him, I need to give him motivation. My heart was pounding, but darn it I was determined.

What motivated me to do something that a

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Your sales reps brought in every last sale they could at the end of December to close the year strong. At least that is what should have happened when your commission plans are structured to motivate the reps with high rates as their performance increases related to goal! Your reps helped the company reach its revenue goal. Now the pipeline is light and the company is concerned their sales goals for Q1 will not be met. What is a growing

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Small - and medium-sized businesses need to make the most of every dollar and need to know exactly where and how those dollars are being spent. Because sales compensation is your second largest variable expense next to salaries, it’s extremely important that you have visibility into these costs and confidence in your forecasts. At times you might feel like you are blindfolded trying to pin down the cost of your commission plans. Modeling your

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