Many of the companies with which I work have the mistaken belief that compensation manages or motivates their sales employees. As a result, the tendency for management to enrich the comp plan has arisen over the years, essentially making it easier to earn more money with less effort.

I believe that compensation and managing are two completely separate activities. We need to manage our sales team by establishing a set of reasonable and achievable objectives, and we need to make sure that our sales teams have the proper training, tools and equipment to execute their tasks.

Moreover, we frequently see situations where there is pressure to enrich the comp plan when the selling environment within the company is so dysfunctional that the environment prohibits the salespeople from selling. The people are focused on the wrong tasks, and the doing the right tasks the wrong way. They are busy, over worked and slowly becoming disillusioned they will ever receive anything from the comp plan.

For a comp plan to be effective the sales organization must be right first and foremost. You have to create the environment that allows the sales people to maximize their performance and be rewarded for it. The comp plan must be simple, effective and easy to understand. If you have to have more than two pieces of paper to read through all the requirements and boundaries, then you don’t have a comp plan you have an entrapment plan. A plan that traps the sales people into the false sense of being able to achieve compensation for extra performance and then them finding out all the reasons why they will not be paid. There needs to be enough boundaries to protect the organization from undue payments but not that many that sales people struggle to navigate their way through it.

I also suggest you make sure that the management of your sales team focuses on coaching the team to understand how to excel with the compensation plan. Have the right environment, tools, systems and structures that allows them to excel. Manage the core and allow the comp plan to be the icing on the cake or reward rather than expecting the comp plan to manage the team for you.

Tags: sales compensation; compensation pl

Hits: 33 | Read more...

I have received a number of telephone calls and emails from people that are looking for top sellers to join their teams. The frustration levels are high as they review resumes, talk to recruiters and sit through interviews. It is time consuming and very demotivating for sales leaders. They are pulling out their hair trying to find their next champion.

I will let you in on a little secret – the chances of you finding one are minute, as there are very few out there. In two decades of consulting I can state I have met only a few that could be classified as sales champions. In fact, I can count them on my left hand.

Top sellers are extremely selective over whom they work for and where they work. They receive offers all the time and they know their worth in the market. They are expensive to hire, relentless to manage and if you poach one from your competitor, you can be darn sure they will be poached from you too. Often if you do find one who is willing to work for you, the salary package will be outside your budget and could cause major problems with other team members.  Who needs the headache!

The best way to beat the ‘top seller’ barrier is to focus on making them rather than hiring them. Get the person that has the traits and motivation than can be groomed into a top seller for your business. They will respond to the right management, right environment, career opportunities with credible products and services.

Like your product competing against competitors, your company is your product to prospective hires. You need to offer the things that attract top quality employees and groom them to what you want them to be. They are more loyal and just that little bit easier to manage as they have adopted your culture and methodologies.

Become an employer of choice and you will have the opportunity to develop a team of top sellers.

Tags: hiring | sales leaders | top sellers

Comments 3 | Hits: 171 | Read more...

Have your Say !

For many organizations it is the end of the financial year and a time when sales organizations are measured for success or failure. In the weeks leading up to the end of the financial year did you sales organization go into over drive of trying to pull in last minute deals to get you over the line? Was there a high level of anxiety with people clinging to every sign of hope that the customer will give you the purchase order number? Was the pipeline or sales funnel being pawed over to see which customers could be enticed with a special offer to bring their decision making timeline forward?  If this sounds like your last month of the financial year then you probably have an sales gambling addiction.

For many organizations it is the end of the financial year and a time when sales organizations are measured for success or failure. In the weeks leading up to the end of the financial year did you sales organization go into over drive of trying to pull in last minute deals to get you over the line? Was there a high level of anxiety with people clinging to every sign of hope that the customer will give you the purchase order number? Was the pipeline or sales funnel being pawed over to see which customers could be enticed with a special offer to bring their decision making timeline forward?  If this sounds like your last month of the financial year then you probably have an sales gambling addiction.

The hysteria of last minute attempts to pull sales figures over the line each quarter and year is not how well run sales organizations operate. Certainly everyone (should) gets a buzz when good deals are signed but should every deal that is signed cause the mass hysteria that some sales organizations feel in those closing weeks. Usually this is a sign of a sales team that is poorly managed on a number of different levels and the crescendo of all those management issues arrives at deadlines.

Was the sales plan not measured or worse still, was there a proper sales plan in place that could be measured? Was the sales process disconnected from the customer buying processes? Was the pipeline/sales funnel full of optimism instead of realism?

What is the actual cause of this hysteria in the closing weeks/days and hours of sales goals? Have your say on your experiences and what you believe causes this problem.

To Enter your comment, simply click on the Client Log-in section on the left hand side of the website and create your own personal account. You then enter your comment to this blog or create your own blog article.

Tags:

Comments 1 | Hits: 387 | Read more...