“I don’t understand why my manager doesn’t do something about the salespeople who don’t give a crap and why I don’t get a raise for carrying this team?” ~ A real conversation from this past week.
Sales compensation can be a tricky issue. Depending upon the selling cycle, the selling process, the product, margins, sell price, etc., there are many ways to compensate salespeople. The bottom line is that your compensation program must:
- Reward the behaviors that you expect of your growth team. ( Part 1)
- Be financially advantageous for both parties. (Part 2)
- Be balanced toward who is taking on the most risk. (Part 3)
- Provide the education, development, resource and management support necessary to facilitate growth. Whether they realize it or not, every growth professional needs some form of ongoing education, development, managerial, and resource support. Successful performance in the field is dependent upon the resources and the tools the organization provides to its professionals. I am not advocating that many growth professionals do not succeed because their company did not support them properly, I do believe the more effectively they are supported and developed, the more successful they will be.
This support discussion goes beyond simple and traditional “sales training” which I abhor. There is a mindset today that says “put them through a training program and they will grow.” That perspective and philosophy is wrong, many times over.
Education and development is an ongoing, regular, repeating process. Your entire organizational team, more importantly your growth team, requires consistent and regular education and development. If you want your growth team to perform at its highest level, a customized, ongoing (regular) program that reflects the mission, vision, values, and goals of the firm incorporated into the growth process, is the requirement.
Simply putting growth professionals on the street, expecting them to perform, will not get you there. Your compensation program must reflect a commitment and a process that encourages, supports and facilitates the results and behaviors expected of these professionals. Besides having a compensation program that defines how you will pay your growth team, it must include a component that says how you will educate and develop them, as well.
Stay tuned to Part 5 to wrap this up and read what I told this growth professional.
Dave Cooke has recently launched his program the Sustainable Revenue Formula™ (SuRF), which provides businesses a comprehensive formula for effective and sustainable revenue growth. If you are interested in obtaining a copy of the white paper, “Revolutionizing the Future for Today’s Business”, please contact me: dave@salescooke.com.