It takes five or more interactions for 80% of prospects to convert into a customer. However, most sales teams will only try one or two times before they start to abandon prospects. This means your sales team could more than double their sales figures, every month, if they persist. So this is something you might want to consider when you create sales goals in the future.

At times, the high number of interactions isn’t even necessary. Some prospects are ready to convert much earlier, but just aren’t closed properly. Again this is missed revenue and commissions.

So, why are sale teams stopping so early? One of the biggest barriers for sales teams is the inability to read the signs that say prospects are ready to purchase. There are four main signs to look for in determining whether a customer is in a position to convert.

Nodding the head

When a prospect is nodding their head, they are agreeing with the salesperson and are aligning their thought pattern to that of the seller. It is a typical, unconscious movement that means they’re ready to purchase. To spot it, you have to have good eye contact and listen to what the prospect is saying.

They repeat benefits

This is a typical ‘ready to purchase’ signal that can sometimes be misread. This is when the prospect repeats a benefit statement for your sales team to validate the benefit. It is a key point because the prospect is letting you know that this is an important aspect to them and they want confirmation that they’ll get it.

If your team are being asked for validation, they should be looking to confirm those details and close deals.

The prospect asks for a price

This is another typical ‘ready to purchase’ signal that can be misread by your sales team. Most salespeople will think that this is an objection or barrier signal and that the prospect is price orientated. However, it could be that the prospect is working out their budget and how to get the cost into it.

However, first, your team might need to rid any last barriers to purchase by ensuring that the prospect has no more reservations. A question like “does the product meet all your requirements?” might be a good start.

They say yes

The most obvious sign. However, sale people may miss this and not close. So, if your prospect says that they’re interested in making a purchase, then the deal should be closed without delay.

Don’t let your team miss out on potential sales. Create sales goals that are double what they are currently doing and retrain them to see the key signs that a prospect is ready to purchase.

When it comes to sales performance goals, it’s all too easy to make the mistake of being overly aggressive at every opportunity. Which essentially is a loss of sales commission. It’s important to rectify this because approaching sales with a “one size fits all” approach is a recipe for missing out on your targets.

It is necessary for your team to give some thought to other approaches, in order to meet those all-important sales performance goals. One such approach is the ‘soft sell’.

What exactly is a ‘soft sell’?

Not to be confused with an 80’s synth-pop band with a similar name, the soft sell is almost self-explanatory in its simplicity. Yet many sales teams still neglect using this sales approach. The soft sell is based on casual persuasion and subtle language, which offers an all-round much lower pressure experience for your prospects. It’s designed to make them feel more comfortable and is less likely to turn down the opportunity due to feeling pressurised.

Knowing when to ask for a sale

The soft sell should not be mistaken for passivity. Rather, it’s about understanding when to attempt to close a sale with the requisite level of persistence that will ensure you meet your sales performance goals.

It involves balancing persistence with the knowledge of the product and/or service with a feeling of relatability for the prospect. During the soft sell, self-awareness and empathy are core skills. Being able to read the prospect in such a manner, as to help you keep your conversational tone comfortable. This, in turn, helps to keep the prospect at ease and makes them feel like they may want or need the product or service on offer offering. This is effective as they do not feel under pressure to make a decision.

In it for the long haul

It’s worth remembering that the soft sell is a long game. Prospects might not immediately decide to make a purchase when presented with the soft sell. However, it’s an undoubtedly useful technique for encouraging repeat sales and establishing long-term working relationships with customers.

Why not encourage your sales team to employ the soft sell technique this week? It might be worthwhile utilising your sales commission software from Commissionly to identify potential soft-sell prospects, before using to it track your success against those all-important sales performance goals.

Sales performance management is always easy when your business only has a couple of sales professionals. Once you scale up though, using manual commission tracking methods or even spreadsheet tracking becomes more problematic. This will be even more tricky over coming years due to the government’s Making Tax Digital initiatives, as you probably won’t be able to evidence or back up your records properly within your digital returns.

Benefits of sales commission software

Sales commission software makes all your tracking far easier, and also gives you the digital footprint that can easily mesh with your HMRC-approved payroll. You won’t need to spend loads of your time on complex financial commissions calculations for your salesforce any longer, as this software handles all kinds of complex commission structures with ease.

It goes without saying that the main reason you pay commission is to grow sales. And, this can be a very real motivational factor for sales teams. Create an even more competitive environment, with your commission structure, when you sign up for sales commission software by:

• Structuring add-on commissions for consistent top performers in teams.
• Varying commissions for different products. If you need to push specific items at different times of the year, simply change the settings within your software.
• Base your commission payments on revenues, sales volumes, or any other metrics and watch your sales force relish the challenges!

Get all the above, and more, when you sign up for sales commission software from Commissionly!

Take time to browse the Commissionly site to learn more ways your business will benefit from top-rated sales commission software from the experts! We’re proud of our high reputation and excellent customer ratings. We offer our clients a customer forum to exchange learning experiences and tips, so you will grow your expertise and benefit from a lot of user advice and support when you register for sales commission software with us. If you’d like to learn more, don’t hesitate to get in contact with us today.

When it comes to hitting your sales targets, you’re dependent on your sales team doing their best job. It’s easy to overlook the sales manager during particularly busy times of the year – such as Christmas – when everyone seems to be pulling their weight in equal measure. However, any good boss knows that it’s the sales manager that is intrinsic to the success of their business during critical sales times, and how happy they are is ultimately the measure for how happy your workforce is.

So, how can manager overrides make the difference not just to your sales manager, but to your entire team?

Motivation

If the sales manager is recognised as the driving force of their sales team, they’ll have the confidence in higher management to keep the rest of the sales team motivated. By utilising a manager override system, you don’t need to be concerned as to whether you’re suitably compensating your sales manager or not – they’ll know it, expect it and have more faith in your business in turn.

Ambition

Moving beyond day-to-day selling motivation, having a culture of ambition within your office is key to your company’s success. If the sales team see that the sales manager is happier, as a result of dependable manager overrides on commissions, they’ll feel more driven to aim for a managerial role themselves. This creates a friendly sense of competition and emotional investment in the business long-term.

Organisation

Your employees can only be as structured as you are. By setting up a manager override system, they’ll see your commitment to ensuring the smooth operation of the business. This can only improve company morale, as it’s far easier to be committed to a business that is devoted to prioritising the organisation of sales team pay.

What Commissionly offers

At Commissionly, we’ve set up a manager override system that makes incorporating them into a commission plan as simple as possible. It’s the first step for improving employee happiness on every level, and keeping your sales manager consistently happy to boot – something that can’t go amiss this festive season! Why not contact us today to find out more?

When it comes to setting your team’s sales goals for next year, there are a lot of factors to consider. It is important to remember that this will be a new year, a time for reflection and putting the fresh foot forward for new beginnings. So it is safe to assume that a lot of your team will be making new year’s resolutions.

Capitalise on these when you create sales goals for them. This will help you to make sales goals more relevant to individuals, improve sales performance and increase revenue for the business.

How can you align your staff’s new year’s resolutions to their sales goals?

Ask them what their new year’s resolutions are

As a starting point, ask your team what their new year’s resolutions are. Most of them should have at least one and if not, ask them to come up with one. Get them to write it down on a piece of paper (with their name on it) and give it to their team leader or yourself.

Assess the new year’s resolutions and align them to your sales goals

Next, look at these new year’s resolutions and see how they can be aligned to the business. Some of them will be easier than others. A common resolution (goal) might be to earn more, so you can look at how improving their targets and motivation, will assist them in selling more.

Another could be, to eat more healthily. While you might not think you can integrate this into your planning, you could suggest that staff members eat their lunch in the staff area instead of at their desk. Eating at a desk poses long-term health risks so you can support them in this way. It is important to keep in mind that not all goals you create have to be sales or money-related.

Have a meeting with your staff

The next step would be to speak individually to your staff and give them their new sales goals. Make sure to show them how their personal new year’s resolutions relate to the new sales goals. When they see the link between the two, they are more likely to have increased motivation for both their personal and professional goals.

You can also talk through methods for how staff can improve their general performance by giving an end-of-year final report.

So finally, mixing your staff’s new year’s resolutions with your business goals, when creating sales goals for January will most likely generate positive actions which leads to improved business sales.

If you require some assistance, use Commissionly’s commission software for small to medium business.

Most managers think they know how to set sales targets and quotas, but did you know that the formula should change depending upon the time of year that you are in? Buying habits change throughout the year, and when it comes to Christmas, more people are likely to spend money.

Knowing this, managers should adjust their sales goals at Christmas. Setting individual targets for each employee can help to maximise their motivation and performance.

But how do you know what types of goals to set?

Jump on Christmas sales

If you know that sales usually increase by 15% over the Christmas period, then it’s a fair assumption that your individual performance targets for employees can increase by 15% too. In order to understand such fluctuations, requires looking at the sales data over the past five years, to get an accurate value. Looking at sales data for the previous year will produce less accurate information to work from. It’s also worth comparing data across the whole industry. So take a look at this BBC article as a starting point!

Do something different this year

Are you doing anything different this year to boost sales? For instance, a boxing day sale or a Christmas promotion. These possibilities need to be taken into account. Do some research as to whether other businesses promotions have increased their sales. If there is a trend, then consider incorporating this into your sales goals.

Remember that many stores are likely to experience increased footfall over the Christmas period too, so this may give you a sales boost. Consider your conversion rate, and use this to estimate how many customers you can encourage to buy.

Focus on employees

Remember that employees are likely to be in a different mental space during the Christmas season. Staff who love Christmas can easily get their customers into the festive spirit. These are the best people to have on shift. Other sales team members may be feeling under pressure because they have families that rely on them. So it is important to consider their needs over the holiday time. An employee that is stressed by things going on at home will be less productive.

After having considered all of these, you may realise that you require a more accurate and metric-driven plan. If this is the case, then you need Commissionly! Our easy to use system allows real-time information to be used to calculate sales goals, targets and performance management, all which can help your business thrive. For more information, take a look at Commissionly today!

The sales commission dashboard is fast becoming the most popular way to track and analyse sales. The benefits this little tool can bring to your business far outweigh the time it takes to implement. More importantly, when using a sales dashboard, teams report better workflow and a more knowledgeable approach to sales.

Will it work for you? The following are the most impactful benefits that come with using a sales commission dashboard.

On the spot analysis

Analysis is a great way to move your sales strategy forward. It is essential to a good business plan. Whether you are a team leader or a CEO, you will come to rely on it when decision-making. But analysis usually takes time, creating a gap in the flow between the data and your company’s reaction. This gap costs you profit: sales dip and your commission staff drag their feet. A sales commission dashboard solves this problem. Because it offers real-time analysis of commission, sales and staff performance, your company’s reaction to changing sales will be lightning-fast and the best it’s ever been.

Comprehensive management

Performance management is key to a sales company running on commission. Sales data can vary wildly between staff, with down-turns quickly snowballing. Therefore, it is key that you keep tabs on how your sales team is performing. The sales commission dashboard is an excellent way to compare the sales contributions of individual staff. It allows you to react quickly to a dip in sales performance and buoys up your sales data. More than this, it allows you to respond to high sales performances quickly, which is encouraging for sales teams. This results in a virtuous circle of positive competition, and better sales.

Optimising your forecasting data

Forecasting is ever-present in every sales meeting. The sales commission dashboard is an easy way to sift data, move analysis forward, and present a persuasive set of forecasts to the team. It is necessary in providing an easy guide to future sales techniques, and in setting meaningful goals for your team.

Every sales team has the same general goal – sell more.

Consistent monitoring of sales performance is the simplest way of checking that you’re on track to achieving constant positive performance. But it is important to note that setting the right goals will empower your team, keep the budget on track, and grow your profits. While setting the wrong goals can quickly derail necessary progress.

So how can you set sales goals the right way? What kind of benefits can you expect? Let’s take a look at how to set goals that will truly grow your business.

Break down your sales goals

Bigger goals can always be broken down into smaller tasks. This makes it easier to stay on target. First, calculate your annual or monthly sales goal. Use this amount to work backwards, to create smaller targets for each week. Seasonal differences and other predictable fluctuations should be taken into account. This includes the time it takes to train a new employee, or a reasonable amount of time to “ramp up” to new targets to maintain productivity and motivation.

Working backwards from your target also helps you look at what activities are involved to reach your goals. For example, if on average you need to speak to 10 leads for each sale, that determines both a skill benchmark (converting 1 out of 10 calls) and a booking benchmark (at least 10 a day to make 1 sale).

Set sales goals the SMART way

You’ve probably heard of SMART goals, but are you implementing them? This popular acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. When you’re determining how to set sales goals, SMART is an essential strategy to implement. SMART goals, especially when staff are able to see how they tie directly into their commission, make a team easier to manage.

You should be cognizant of common mistakes when setting sales goals too. Being clear on the targets and tasks required will set your sales team and business, up for success.

To help you reach your goals, Commissionly’s straightforward solution to commissions makes it easy to manage and motivate your sales force. Learn more about how you could use Commissionly to reduce the time spent managing your team, increase productivity, and spot key insights to strategically plan for your future.

It happens to everyone at some point, no matter how you create sales goals, there is a period when sales performance drops. When this happens, there can be a loss of morale, which can further hamper efforts to recover performance and return to winning ways. In the long term, this can seriously affect the business’ profitability.

So, how can you help a team (member) recover from a sales performance slump? Here are some solutions.

1. Understand why the sales performance slump happened

The first thing that you need to do is understand why there has been a sales performance drop. It could be due to frequent illnesses recently or taking a holiday, or something that is related to industry performance. Sales commission software should be able to identify trends and/or changes in sales performance.

Other factors may be the addition of a new sales process and staff have struggled to close prospective clients. This is often the case when new processes are implemented, as staff take time to align their work behaviour to the new processes.

2. Resolve issues

Once you’ve found the reasons for the sales slump you can take action to resolve the issue. If, for instance, you’ve noticed that a staff member has taken a lot of time off because of illness, then you can look for ways to assist them in getting them back to work.

Or, if there is a problem with a new sales process that is hindering the close of sales, you can look at ways to improve said sales process.

3. Create sales goals to inspire people to improve

The next step is to inspire your staff when you create sales goals for the next sales period. You should always create sales goals that slightly increase the performance from the bad sales period. For instance, if they sold only once in that period, then increase it to two in the next period.

It is important that you don’t increase your expectations too much. This can be a stressor for staff and could continue the trend of poor results. Instead, smaller, sustainable (but higher) sales goal can result in happier staff who will perform better.

So when a team, or just one person, suffers from a sales performance drop, you need to act to ensure that they recover. This is done through careful management, analysis and taking time to create sales goals that will help teams grow in confidence to recover.

Commissionly is a leading sales commission software service that can assist you. If you want to find out more information about how we can help you to reward your staff, contact us now.

When you sit down to develop your staff bonus structures, you often think about how you can create sales goals. However, it isn’t just sales commission that is important for the performance of your staff. There are other bonuses that you can give to help motivate and grow your business.

Offering rewards for responsibilities, other than sales, makes team members think more about their work. They will endeavour to improve their behaviour and perform at a higher standard.

Your compensation software can reward bonuses in the following areas.

Training bonus

Knowledge is power and you can easily add in a training bonus to your compensation software. Staff enjoy the process of learning new skills and research has found that by offering educational opportunities to your staff, you can improve loyalty to your organisation.

Rewards can be given for successfully completing courses as well as an additional bonus for getting a high score in the course. The bonus can be manually added to their monthly pay by a manager.

Customer service award

Attracting a customer and making a sale is one thing, but the next step is to make sure that their expectations are exceeded. Customers who are happy will remain loyal to your business and buy from you time and time again. This makes them a more valuable customer.

If your customers rate your services highly, then your sales team have obviously set the expectations at the right level and should be rewarded. This can be done on a recurring commission basis, or it could be done via a special one-off payment.

Time served bonus

Too many employees are leaving organisations after short periods of employment, sometimes within a year. There’s a high cost to bringing in new employees and could also impact your organisation’s potential sales.

One way to encourage staff to remain with your company is to offer a bonus for time served in your organisation. Good milestones to consider rewarding include one year, two years, three years, five years or even ten years.

Keep in mind that bonuses don’t have to be kept for commissions only. Rewarding staff for a variety of responsibilities can improve morale throughout the organisation and lead to better performance when it comes to sales. Other bonuses can also help increase employee retention which will lower staffing costs and likely increase profits.