Search Results
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New Data: Is Sales Compensation Aligned With Changing Motivational Needs?
- October 31, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When interviewing sales and sales leadership candidates, similar counter-intuitive discussions occur. Many candidates claim that money isn’t that important because they love sales – until they claim that the base salary isn’t high enough. For others, even though they may not disclose it, the base salary is completely irrelevant as long as the company won’t cap the salesperson’s total earnings. We need to decode the topic of compensation so that we can be sure that both the base salary and the total on-plan earnings are acceptable to candidates.
It is very important to make sense of the hidden and unpredictable compensation responses because many salespeople leave the company after a short time because they don’t believe earnings are equivalent to the compensation that was promised.
It is crucial to understand that salespeople are motivated primarily by one of two motivational styles and unless you wish to hire only one type of salesperson, there must be two compensation plans that should be tailored accordingly. Let’s discuss this.
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The Sales Compensation Plan from Hell and How to Improve It
- September 17, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Have you ever seen a compensation plan so complicated, so illogical and so detailed that all you could do was stare at it and wonder, WTF?
I did. This week. Couldn’t make heads or tails of it. There were several sales groups selling different services to different audiences, several roles in each group, different plans for each role, different percentages, some of the compensation was guaranteed but some was variable and had to be earned by achieving quantitative and qualitative goals consisting of variable weighted goals, some of which were based on revenue while others were based on percentage achievement of goal. The only way to figure it all out was to draw a table on the white board and start filling it in. When we were done it looked like the monstrosity below:
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How to Change a Crappy Sales Compensation Plan to a Better One
- November 3, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
First, this is simply an example – one example – and not the only way to create a sales compensation plan. However, this example will illustrate the most important component to be changed.
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Do We Have Sales Compensation All Wrong?
- May 6, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Should a salesperson receive the maximum commission on the big deal if there was no other activity, critical KPI’s weren’t met, and the pipeline is essentially empty?
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Sales Compensation – Exceptions to the Rule
- January 12, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I’ve previously written about sales compensation, with the average salesperson earning $96,000, a good salespeople earning $135,000 (varies by industry and geography) and poor and entry level salespeople earning around $67,000. Several companies have recently asked me about how to hire salespeople when you can’t afford to pay even the entry level sales compensation.
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Sales Compensation Changes Fail to Change Results
- January 12, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Deloitte conducted a sales compensation survey and identified many issues of common concern. Some of the highlights are:
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Sales Compensation Plans – How To Make Them Work
- January 12, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Frank Aubuchon of Aubuchon Associates, an HR Consulting Firm, wrote an article about Compensation to incent salespeople. With his permission, I have taken an excerpt from his article to share with you.
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Does Changing Compensation Increase Sales?
- January 12, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Back on Wednesday, I was part of a panel, along with Lee Salz, author of How to Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Managerand Mike McCue, editor in chief of Sales & Marketing Management Magazine, at the Incentive Marketing Association conference in Boston.
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Sales Force Compensation – X Marks the Spot
- January 12, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Salary or Commission?
Many small businesses can’t decide and most companies don’t believe they can afford the salespeople they wish to hire. The biggest variable in this decision is the length of the sales cycle, not the amount of compensation!
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Sales Compensation
- January 12, 2015
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Categories: