Rick Smith
- 35 years of sales and marketing experience at the senior executive level in the medical devices and service industries
- Expertise in commission plan design, implementation and administration. Informed by deep experience with sales and marketing strategies; sales force organizational structures; merger-based sales force integration; and product introduction strategies
- Led sales and marketing organizations for large multi-national, mid-size and startup companies, including Siemens, Toshiba, Acuson
- All 7 Best Practices
- Pre-Meeting Discovery Process
- One-on-One Call with Expert
- Meeting Summary Report
- Post-Meeting Engagement
Sales Compensation
Common Problems
- Management fails to understand what motivates their employees.
It's in the development and design process where you need to make sure a sales compensation plan is supporting company objectives plus driving the behavior you want from the sales group. Make sure you involve key sales reps and managers to review the plan prior to rolling it out globally and then have key tracking metrics to ensure you can make quick adjustments if necessary.
- The compensation plan is de-motivating, which results in sales organizations losing focus and sales employees eventually seeking other employment.
A compensation management committee needs to be created if there isn't one. It should consist of senior management from sales, finance and HR. They need to be well-versed in sales compensation and its design and tracking processes. In most cases, this will prevent the problem from ever surfacing. But if it does, you'll be able to address it immediately and make adjustments.
- There are no metrics or systems in place to help track all the critical aspects of the compensation plan.
The compensation management committee should work with IT to develop a tracking process to capture the key metrics needed to see at any time where there may be an issue. This enables the committee to make adjustments as warranted.
- Companies don't align sales compensation plans with the key corporate objectives.
We all realize this should never happen and that corporate objectives should be the first and foremost priority of any sales compensation plan. It is the responsibility of the sales compensation management committee to make sure this happens.
- Companies don't have a process to handle compensation disputes such as overpayments, underpayments or other errors that cause an employee to lose focus and motivation.
This is a situation we never want to have happen. But it does, and a company needs to have a process in place that handles these disputes quickly. All elements of the process should be part of a written plan with dos and don'ts that are covered thoroughly when rolled out to the sales teams. Some companies have employees sign a document outlining the dos and don'ts and the specifics of dispute resolution.
- Companies design a plan and quotas based on certain company or product deliverables. When those aren't met, it affects the sales team's ability to meet quota and make money.
When the company can't meet delivery dates on a new product or the product does not meet specifications, sales compensation targets often simply can't be met. This happens all the time and you need to be prepared for it. The situation should be thought through by the sales compensation management team prior to the plan design. It should have a plan adjustment ready so the issue can be addressed quickly, preventing any major demotivation to the sales team.