Are you suffering through a time when sales people are not selling? Your comp plan may be to blame.
In this blog we share five of the most common signs as indicators your comp plan leaves a lot to be desired. When your comp plan is not structured well, there will be limited motivation to sell, and perhaps no motivation to drive ridiculously high numbers.
Missing revenue targets is no joke. Resolving this problem may be rooted in fixing your comp plan.
The five most common signs as indicators your comp plan leaves a lot to be desired, include:
Leads sit unaddressed. There is nothing more polarizing for leaders of marketing and sales to discover leads remaining unaddressed. The sales team may not be motivated to follow-up with leads if they feel they are not being fairly compensated. Or, there are a number of other reasons why leads may sit unaddressed. Perhaps there is a workflow issue, a communication breakdown, the need for training, or more.
Delayed outreach. Leads should be addressed on the same business day they are received. Ideally, leads are addressed within minutes. For example, if a web form is completed, there should be a auto-responder activated to give that lead the gratification of knowing they going to be contacted. In this example, the web form completion should kick-off a series of steps to move the lead from top-of-funnel, down into a point at which handing them off to sales is deemed appropriate.
Existing Client Commissions Carry-Over (limits motivation to sell new logo deals). If your sales team can survive financially without closing new deals, you have a big problem with the comp plan. We have seen this be the reality for some firms in the tech industry.
Rewards not inspiring action. Great sales people are intrinsically motivated – however, they also need to be rewarded – thus inspired – to keep grinding it out day-after-day. Your idea of rewards may not be inspiring them. Know what inspires action and leverage that information to reward performance. Going a little above and beyond is a nice surprise for those who give you their best effort.
You’ve placed caps on performance. Why would you? If you place a goal out there for your sales people, and encourage them to drive to crazy high numbers if they can get there – everyone wins! Capping performance is a performance (and dream) killer.