By David J. Cocks, CEO
Are you at risk of losing your top producers?
In our work with hundreds of sales organizations, we see many making the same mistakes with regard to their top producers. To keep from losing your best sales reps, here's how to avoid these common pitfalls.
Reward proportionally to their contribution
In many organizations, top producers are carrying the load for the new reps and other low producers. This just isn't fair. You need to design your commission structures so that even lower producers generate a profit for you. That way, you can afford to pay your top reps more. Fair warning... if you don't figure out how to do this, one of your competitors will!
Remove disincentives to greater production
Sales reps often stop working once they reach a certain level, either because their commission gets capped or they are concerned that their territory will be reduced. When you remove these disincentives and structure commission plans correctly, you can motivate your top reps to keep working hard year round, increasing revenue and profits substantially.
Occasionally we'll run into a situation where the disincentives are in place because the CEO doesn't want anyone else making more than he or she does. But this isn't an appropriate comparison. The compensation sales reps receive is based on short-term revenue; CEOs are typically compensated over the long term with ownership or stock options. You should be delighted when you have sales reps making more than you do!
Reward the right behaviors
Sometimes compensation plans are so complicated that the reps can't figure them out or they end up rewarding unproductive behavior. You want to design plans to focus on what's most important for the company, which usually is increasing market share and operating profit.
Maintain consistency
Some organizations will introduce a compensation plan, then halfway through the year when the results aren't what they expected, they change the plans. Their top people get frustrated and leave.
You need to model the results of your compensation plans before you introduce
them – using a modeling approach that has been proven accurate in the past – so you know what's going to happen before you launch the plans. Then you can leave them in place for a full year before tweaking, giving your sales reps the predictability they need.
Well-designed plans retain your top reps, who are so important to achieving your revenue goals, and reduce the hiring and training costs associated with high turnover.
They're a solid investment in your future.