An effective salesforce requires staff to be working at their optimum capacity. A team that is not always reaching sales performance goals, is likely due to increased stress levels. Recent research has shown that about 28% of staff are leaving their roles in the sales team every year. Just under half of those people are leaving due to stress.

Stress has a significant part to play in how productive we are. And some experts have suggested that introducing better stress management will allow companies to achieve increased sales. So, how exactly does stress impact productivity?

Demotivated

When sales staff are stressed, they are less eager to meet targets and less likely to achieve the sales performance goals that have been discussed or set for them. This is for both individual and team targets. Obviously, the knock-on effect is not only on the team but the business as well.

Less resilient

Those suffering from stress are also likely to have lower levels of resilience. What this means is, when they are met with a ‘no’ from a prospective client or even an employer, they will not be likely to be persistent in pursuing that client in order to close a deal.

Lowered communication skills

Those who are under stress are harder to communicate with. They may appear unapproachable and may be unwilling to reach out to contacts inside the office. Good communication skills are an important part of selling and so lacking in this area, due to stress, is a big deal and can completely undermine the efforts of the salesperson to meet their sales performance goals.

How to reduce stress in the sales environment

It is important to note that some levels of stress are useful. However, there needs to be a level of control over the impact of stressors. If staff feel too pressured, they’re going to struggle, and this will lessen their performance – not enhance it. This may require, finding ways to ensure that staff can have opportunities to de-stress.

It isn’t helpful that most sales staff work longer, more unsociable hours. However, there are great ways to encourage activities within the office that can help staff to unwind. For instance, have a games room or a corner where staff can do light exercises or engage in social games like darts, pool or table tennis. Those who exercise are often found to have lower levels of stress and higher levels of productivity. Increased productivity will only benefit the organisation.

If you want to increase sales in your business, consider booking a demo with Commissionly. We offer some of the best software to help your staff meet sales performance goals and help managers keep track of bonus payments.

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.

It’s tempting to push your sales team to the limit, with attractive commission structures. If your employees are money-driven, they will undoubtedly work relentlessly towards the target. Yet you must be careful of burnout.

Nobody can give 120% 24/7. If they do they will likely achieve some impressive results at the start but before long, they will burn out and may even need time off.

So how can you set goals which challenge your sales team without over-working them?

Form practical plans

If you’re wondering how to set sales goals, the first step is checking that targets are realistically achievable during working hours. By signing off on sales goals that you know require more time than the employee has in a day, means you’re agreeing to let them work overtime and potentially run into trouble later.

Encourage time out

If a manager encourages their team to take time out, they will feel it’s ok to have other commitments in life. If an employee always sees a manager working late, they will believe that’s what’s expected of them too.

If you see someone in the office or online after working hours, make sure they know that they should leave work to office hours unless it’s a rare, once-off.

Reward your team

This also shows your sales team that working life isn’t all about sales targets and working all day, every hour under the sun.

Organising regular activities or nights out shows your team you recognise their hard work and it’s time to let loose and do something different.

Make use of your sales commission software

With easy-to-use, well-priced sales commission software, you can monitor targets constantly with individual employees. Ask their opinion on how they feel the month is going. If they are worried about their sales targets then work out a plan together to tackle this.

To find out more about how sales commission software can benefit your sales team, get in touch with Commissionly.

Some businesses don’t offer their employees individual sales-based targets. Instead, they create sales goals based on a team’s performance. When the team reaches the goal, they all get rewarded. But if the team fails, no-one gets any compensation.

There are some advantages and disadvantages to this strategy. What are these and can you benefit from that strategy? Or should you stick to creating sales goals based on the individual’s performance?

Teams can work better together

When you set team goals, you are building a working culture which is more integrated. This allows your team to work off each other’s strengths and weaknesses more naturally. It also improves your team’s level of engagement and general morale. Businesses that employ this strategy notice that it can improve productivity.

Team goals also allow for larger rewards that salespeople can work towards. This can result in a bigger sense of accomplishment when goals have been achieved. Plus, team members will find that achieving those goals means more to them.

Added to this, goals for a team creates more flexibility as there are more paths to success. Staff aren’t micromanaged and so can choose who completes what parts of the sales process, based on their expertise, strengths and other aspects. The more paths there are to succeed, the higher the chance the team will do well, which gives an overall morale boost.

Team goals have the potential to reduce sales success

There are some aspects of a team-based sales goal that aren’t positive.

There is the possibility that at times some team members may not pull their weight and others could feel that their hard work is benefiting those who are less conscientious. This can cause friction within the team and conflict might arise. And if one person isn’t contributing to the team, it poses the possibility of reduced success.

Compensation management can be a challenge, especially when you have new members of staff starting, or staff leaving the organisation. Or, you could have issues if a team member has been ill or on holiday during the target period. If they contributed to just part of the month do they get the full reward or part of the reward? It can be hard to know how much of their participation has contributed to the success of the team. After all, not all contributions are accurate.

Also, setting individual goals, rather than team goals, gives the team members no excuses and greater accountability for their own performance. Due to the fact that it creates a competitive environment that can push staff productivity which can reach higher sales goals.

So while some businesses create sales goals based on team performance, it is not a strategy that ensures success for all businesses. In fact, most businesses will probably find that individually set sales goals would be better, with some form of additional minor team goals.

How effective are you when it comes to sales performance management? To be an effective sales manager, you need to do more than just monitor your team’s performance. You need to inspire them to go the extra mile and close deals daily. Here are 7 habits of effective sales managers:

1. They lead by example

How do you contribute to the success of your team? If you want to take your team’s performance up a level, you need to be part of the action. Effective sales managers don’t give orders from behind a desk — they show their team how it’s done.

2. They know how to calculate sales targets

How realistic are your sales targets? Are they achievable? Are they ambitious? Your sales targets need to push your team, but they also need to be within reach. This is a delicate balance and should be the driving force behind your sales performance management.

3. They’re smart about sales performance management

Sales performance management isn’t a box-ticking exercise. When it’s done right, it provides a framework to motivate each member of your team to success. Effective sales managers know this, and dedicate time to getting it right.

4. They’re flexible with their sales team

Each member of your team has something to contribute. Effective sales managers give their team some flexibility in their approach, enabling them to bring their own strengths to the table.

5. They take responsibility for both success and failure

How accountable are you? Effective sales managers know they are ultimately responsible for the results of their team. Not getting the sales you need? Start by looking at your own performance.

6. They use sales commission software

Sales performance management is a time-consuming process. Effective sales managers don’t have time to calculate commission manually each month. Instead, sales commission software is used to automate the task.

7. They create an inspirational working environment

Finally, effective sales managers work hard every day to create a working environment that inspires their team to take action. One that prioritises collaboration, communication and friendly competition.

Which of these habits can you implement today?

If you offer your employees plenty of sales incentives and introduce commission calculation software to ensure they receive the correct amount of commission for their sales, but still find you are not meeting sales targets, it may be because you are not utilising manager override commission. Let’s take a look at what exactly manager override commission is, in more detail.

What is manager override commission?

As the name suggests, override commission is the percentage of commission a manager receives when employees, in their team or beneath them, make a sale. For example, if a team has three members and each make 10% commission, a manager may make 1% of override commission from their sales.

How can manager override commission improve sales?

You may be wondering how improving just one employee’s commission can improve the sales of an entire team.

Below are some of the ways that manager override commission can improve sales:

• Hands-on motivation – If a manager knows they are going to receive their own commission from their team’s sales, they will be more likely to take a more hands-on approach in motivating their team and ensuring that the team is working as productively as possible.
• Build stronger relationships – For many salespeople, the knowledge that making sales will not only benefit themselves but so too their manager, they are more likely to feel motivated to work harder and to please their manager. Team members seek managerial approval for a number of reasons; they have a close friendship or they hope to be promoted within the team.
• Greater teamwork – If sales commission is split fairly between team members and their manager, this can be done accurately with commission calculation software. It will create a stronger sense of teamwork within a sales team and with their manager, as they are all working towards the same goals.

If you think your company could benefit from commission calculation software, contact Commissionly.io today!

On the ground level, your sales teams are the ones who keep the organisation running by driving sales to generate income. While some managers may argue against sales commissions and incentives, they are actually important in motivating your team to ensure they are doing their best to earn you revenue.

An organisation that has high revenues from sales is able to meet its goals of expansion since its products achieve their intended purposes. In order to achieve high sales, your sales team have to work extra hard since competition in the current digital age is not easy to overcome.

Below are some reasons why compensating your sales team is important in driving your sales.

1. Motivation drives commitment

A sales job is no easy task. If you understand this as a manager, you will appreciate the struggle your sales team goes through to bring in customers. Sales representatives approach a lot of potential customers daily. Out of these interactions, less than half end up making a purchase. In this highly frustrating job, any kind of motivation goes a long way in boosting sales representatives’ morale.

Since different types of people have different things that motivate them, using a sales compensation software will enable you to identify the best incentives to offer your sales team to achieve the best possible results.

2. They help to identify areas with problems

When sales representatives are allocated commissions, based on their sales, they will be more motivated to do their best. When lower revenue is experienced, it becomes the responsibility of managers to look for other factors influencing the decrease, as they can be sure that their sales team have done their best. Such influencers could be due to a lack of proper training, or the need for product improvement and possibly even a need for better deals.

3. Commissions foster friendly competition

In a firm with a sales team, commissions will give the team members competitive incentives and this will foster friendly competition. The friendly competition aids in collaboration as all team members have the mutual objective of making more sales. While at the same time they will be trying to raise their personal sales goals, to lead the pack. The organisation will profit from higher sales due to collaboration and competition.

4. Incentives bear both short and long-term positive outcomes

While incentives motivate the sales team to score more sales in the short run, they also have the long-term effects of creating long-term relationships with clients, helping with contract renewals and also assisting the company to break into new markets. The sales commission software helps achieve the above outcome which helps the organisation to be more profitable in the long-run.

With the above benefits of sales team motivation through commissions, you will be able to create a more energetic team that is guaranteed to give positive results. For the best sales compensation software to assist you in giving your sales team and customer incentives, feel free to browse our website for the best deals and tips.

Working together, or against?

Many sales directors will focus on the success of each individual. They award commission based on who followed the sales process from start to finish, and who closed the deal at the end. 

Each member of staff will work against their friends and colleagues. They fight to sign those high-value contracts and maximise sales figures. It’s every man for himself.

Could working together be a better option? 

Your salespeople are individuals, each with their own way of working. Surely a better approach will identify strengths, weaknesses and personality types. Can you connect the right salesperson with each specific type of customer?

Customers know when they’re being ‘sold to’

Today’s consumers are more aware than ever. They quickly identify how they’re being treated when they’re spending their money.

Many people feel uncomfortable when they’re dealing with one salesperson from start to finish. There’s a belief that this level of consistency makes a customer feel valued. In fact, it makes some customers wonder if they’re just a number. Your customers will look for signs you’re listening to them or whether you’re just after a sale.

Instead, pass your customers around a small team at different stages of the sales journey. They’ll hear the same message from many people, which reinforces the message and can boost customer confidence.

How does this work with sales commission?

If you’re going to take this approach, things need to change. You’ll need to break free from a commission structure that rewards staff only when they close a deal. Each member of the team should receive a share of the sales commission, as a reward for working together.

With Commissionly, it’s possible to create as many sales teams as you like. Now, you can manage your payments easier than ever.

Setting realistic and relatable sales goals can be difficult. Especially since they are key to keeping sales staff motivated. But successful sales goals also keep your business strong, keep investors happy, and make team leaders proud of their team. 

At Commissionly, we know how to create realistic targets and have put together a list of the most common mistakes to avoid.

1. Not understanding what is realistic for your team

If a small proportion of your team misses their goal on a regular basis, then the problem is likely to lie with their techniques. However, if the majority of team members are failing, then it’s likely the problem is with the targets themselves. Start by defining what is realistic for your company and then create sales goals in line with this. Remember, targets should be manageable and achievable.

2. Ignoring market potential

Every market and industry is different so setting the best goals for your business relies on following current market trends. Are you entering a previously untapped market or promoting a new product that fills a gap? Then aggressive sales goals may help you to establish your brand before competitors catch up. 

3. Failing to train team members in sales

You wouldn’t expect someone who hasn’t learned how to drive to be a chauffeur. Thus, you can’t expect new sales staff to exceed their targets immediately. There is an art to selling and anyone who is willing can learn the tricks of the trade. That means it’s important to teach new team members how you do things and impart any tips for success. You can also allow older team members to share their experiences and wisdom, improving communication and team spirit in turn. 

At Commissionly, we pride ourselves on being the first cloud-based sales commission and sales compensation management web app for SMEs. For more information about our product and the benefits it brings, get in touch with us today [https://www.commissionly.io/sales-commission-dashboard/].

No matter the industry, the sales team is one of the hardest working teams within any business. Ask any salesperson what motivates them, and the answer will typically be “money”. Nobody gets into a sales role to achieve a basic salary and commission plays a huge role in ‘the win’.

Sales roles are demanding, and at times can be demotivating. Frequent rejection, the frustration of being passed from pillar to post as you navigate companies to find your buyer, having a customer on the hook and losing them at the 11^thhour. It isn’t hard to understand how many sales reps can find themselves in a slump. Here are just a few tips on how you can improve the general morale of your sales team, and as a result, see a spike in employee performance. 

1. Training

Employee training is important, especially for salespeople. Regardless of their previous background in sales, if an employee does not intimately know what they are selling they are handicapped in the process. Invest in your employees, and ensure they are as knowledgeable as they can be about the products or services being offered and the differentiating factors of the company behind them. 

2. Bonus/commission

A bonus and commission are often the key motivators for people within a sales role, as these are often a big contribution toward the monthly pay an employee will receive. Investing in a sales commission software will take the difficulty out of commission, it will automatically show each individual employee what commission they are earning, as well as show the efforts of the team as a whole. Having a system with real-time updates shows employees exactly where they are at any given time and where their peers are, which is ideal for target setting. 

3. Friendly competition

Within a sales environment, a competitive atmosphere is essential to bring out the best in your sales team. By encouraging friendly competition, whether it be with work targets or a sports sweepstakes, this will encourage the right atmosphere needed to drive up those sales numbers. By being able to track their performance and their commission targets, employees will be able to reflect more easily on what is and isn’t working for them within sales.

4. A happy workplace

Finally, making sure your employees are happy within the workplace and feel as though they are valued and appreciated will do wonders for morale, improve retention levels as well as performance.