Sales teams, research tells us, are responsible for as much as 50% of a company’s value creation. And with the pandemic sprinkling uncertainty and volatility over the sales ecosystem, companies need to swiftly turn their focus on effectiveness.
It’s not too hard to understand the importance of compensation when it comes to motivating sales teams and extracting efficiency. Nothing encourages sales professionals better than a fair reward for the sales they complete. However, the incentive plans need to be purpose-led, objective-driven, and people-centric.
To achieve this, companies must equip themselves with the latest tools that take care of the nitty-gritty of Sales Performance Management (SPM). The devil is in the details – finding the right balance between commissions, payments, goals, costs, skills, and metrics needs constant adaptation and supervision. Most importantly, you need help in aligning individual goals with the larger vision of the company.
The optimal SPM software embraces all the above elements and brings them together in a neat, user-friendly package.
Look for these key features in a sales compensation software
1. Build and Manage Plans
According to McKinsey, no matter which metric is used, the top 30% of sales representatives will outperform the bottom 30% by a ratio of four to one. A sure-shot route to success is by narrowing that gap. Allowing sales teams to build new plans and giving them the keys to managing them helps unleash the potential in all sales representatives.
In sales, one size will never fit all. A user-friendly, no/less-code compensation software lets the company easily design and implement incentive plans. A low-code platform that employs a natural language processing (NLP) rule engine allows for greater ease of use and flexibility.
2. Flexibility
Flexible workflows allow companies to pull up and manage different kinds of incentives and plans. Digitization is rapidly changing user and buyer actions. A sales compensation software should have the flexibility to adapt to changing scenarios. Flexibility can be offered for:
1) Role or skill-specific incentives
2) Incentives during different stages of a sales funnel
3) Splitting commissions and
4) Incentives according to the channel used
3. Data Collection and Analytics
Sales analytics has the potential to unlock gold mines. From forecasting to costs to sales performances, data contains all the answers. A platform that collects and analyses data allows sales teams to predict sales trends, find winning patterns, increase satisfaction and enhance overall performance. This can be used to push both top and bottom-line progress.
4. Speed and Transparency
Speed is a vital asset in sales. A compensation software that embraces speed and accuracy reflects the company’s sales vision. A company should be able to make payouts, changes, analyses, reports, and predictions at lightning speeds and communicate the same with its salespeople.
A transparent communication channel lets the sales reps know that the company is empathetic and thoughtful. It boosts collaboration and enables them to complete sales.
5. Automation
Leaving the mundane and labor-intensive work to automation gives the company the freedom to invest time in value creation. From reporting to consolidation, and communication to payouts, automation helps prepare for the future.
Enabling the right sales compensation strategy is crucial to a company’s success.
An efficient, adaptive, and future-ready SPM has now become a key tool for building a superstar sales team. With Blitz, industry-leading commission tracking and management software, you can ensure accuracy, efficiency, and punctuality in the automation of commission calculation.
Blitz was recognized by Gartner as a Representative Vendor in its "Market Guide for Sales Performance Management", 2021 because it represents the attributes that Gartner considers fundamental in the SPM market.
Give your sales team the Blitz boost and build your superstar sales team. Contact us for a free demo.