The Art of Motivation: Designing Sales Compensation Plans That Drive Results

The Art of Motivation: Designing Sales Compensation Plans That Drive Results

Designing an effective sales compensation plan is critical to any successful sales organization. A well-crafted plan motivates your sales team, drives revenue growth, and aligns the interests of both the company and the sales representatives. 

It’s essential to understand the impact of compensation on salespeople. Sales reps are highly motivated by money, and their income is directly tied to their performance. Incentives such as bonuses, commissions, and accelerators can all play a key role in driving sales performance. However, these incentives can have unintended consequences if not implemented correctly.

This blog post will explore various aspects of creating a successful sales compensation plan, including setting quotas, selecting base and variable pay, using accelerators, and employing rewards and contests. We’ll also discuss strategies for designing effective compensation plans for different types of sales roles and tips for continuously improving your compensation plan.

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Two Tall Guys Talking Sales Podcast: How Do You Determine Your Company’s Sales Objectives Each Year?

Two Tall Guys Talking Sales Podcast: How Do You Determine Your Company’s Sales Objectives Each Year?

In this episode, Kevin and Sean discussed the importance of setting appropriate sales goals for a company. They suggested starting with the end goal in mind and then working backward to set achievable but challenging targets. They also advise avoiding pitfalls such as not considering attrition or overstating possibilities when setting goals. Finally, they emphasize the importance of dedicating resources to new markets or initiatives to grow the business rather than only replacing lost customers.

You can subscribe to our podcast by searching in your favorite podcast player for “Two Tall Guys Talking Sales,” or you can listen to the embedded version here.

The following is a transcript of the podcast above. It has been sparsely edited to increase its readability, but many of the idioms and poor spoken grammar have been left in place. Fireflies.ai automatically generated the transcriptionand, as capable as that product is, there are times when words are missed or the sentence structure is incorrectly interpreted. We have tried to catch all of these software misses, but we are confident that some still remain. The below text is provided for those that would rather read than listen to a podcast.

00:00

Kevin Lawson

Hello, and welcome to episode two, not eight, of “Two Guys Talking Sales.” I’m one of your hosts, Kevin. 

00:10

Sean O’Shaughnessey

And I’m Sean. 

00:11

Kevin Lawson

We’re glad you’re here on this Two Guys Talking Sales episode. 

This podcast tackles real sales issues, big and small, for salespeople selling situations and sales leadership. We’ve individually built successful sales careers around the problems and solutions in B-to-B selling, from software and services to manufacturing distribution. We have sold to and for many of the world’s most recognized brands as well as some you have yet to hear of. We know LinkedIn says this is a 30-minute time slot. Still, we’ll only take 15 minutes—nothing like under-promising and over-delivering. For roughly the next 15 minutes, we invite you into our world of experience. We’ll dig into one issue. You’ll have a solution should you encounter a similar situation in your career. Let’s dive in. 

Sean, let’s set the stage. 

01:07

Sean O’Shaughnessey

This topic should be about setting your sales plan objectives for this year. 

01:15

Kevin Lawson

Setting objectives for the year. Like not being tongue-tied on a public broadcast. How about that? 

01:21

Sean O’Shaughnessey

At least you tried to plan ahead and had it written. Now that’s better than I did. I’m just winging it. 

01:25

Kevin Lawson

Our last episode was all about planning your year. Why not have a plan? Well, so you’ll know how you’re doing? 

01:32

Sean O’Shaughnessey

There you go. 

01:33

Kevin Lawson

Today, we will talk about how to determine company sales objectives. Yes, let’s do that. 

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