How can sales managers establish realistic measures and quotas in an uneven economy?
Accurate quota setting is the most overlooked way to reduce costs. Simply setting accurate quotas may reduce overall compensation costs by 10 percent to 20 percent without altering plan designs. Use these tactics as part of a comprehensive quota development methodology.
- Shorten time horizons. Setting quarterly quotas or allowing midterm adjustments on annual goals will enable more accuracy in a shifting economy.
- Bottom-up quota development. Individual sales goals are often apportioned from full company objectives, which can lead to unrealistic targets. Quotas need to be a collaboration of top-down and bottom-up quota development. This process should uncover territories that can shoulder more of the growth burden as well as those that may be tapped out.
What’s the best way to use contests and spiffs?
Competitions are the perfect tool to launch new products and services, bolster eroding margins or ease the sting from a temporary setback in the economy. Contests should last three to six months and offer winners a modest reward, because they should not be used as a substitute for effective sales compensation plans and quota setting practices. In fact, set aside no more than 5 percent of the total incentive budget for contests and spiffs at the beginning of the year and consider limiting awards to representatives achieving most of their sales quotas or exceeding performance thresholds to reinforce the importance of meeting goals. Drive the point home by centralizing contests to keep renegade managers from offering rewards that deviate from the company’s core strategy or diminish fundamental sales achievement.
What other tactics drive sales performance?
This is the perfect time to revisit the productivity of your sales force. Finding ways to force sales personnel to decrease administrative tasks and increase face-to-face selling time and other revenue-generating activities is a sure method of driving sales. Companies may have eliminated sales support personnel during the downturn or delayed investments in tools like CRM software, mobile devices or lead databases, but it’s easy to assure the return on these investments as long as sales quotas are increased proportionally.
Matthew Lucy is a senior consultant with the Sales Effectiveness and Rewards practice at Towers Watson. Reach him at (310) 551-5603 or [email protected].
