When it comes to sales performance management, you need to be holding regular meetings with your sales team. It helps you to identify when there are problems with your sales team and guide them to meet their sales goals more effectively.

However, meetings often have a reputation for being a waste of time. Normally this is because they aren’t properly managed. Yet they have the potential to really help your sales team. So, here are some tips to make your sales meetings more effective and to help staff make their sales performance goals:

1. Use data to back up claims

When in a meeting, you need to use real data to highlight points. This is where sales commission software can be really helpful. Good software will highlight how much your staff have earned and what they need to do to meet sales targets.

When people can see their performance in numbers, it can help them to identify the need to change their habits/working efforts to succeed.

2. Have a plan for the meeting

When you create sales goals, you often have a plan of how your staff can achieve it. The same is true for meetings. When you have a set plan for the meeting, including what you want to bring up and what actions you want to happen afterwards, you’ll find the meetings will be more productive.

Another way to improve meeting productivity is to share the details of what you want to go through at the meeting before the start. This can be done via email and allows staff to prepare their responses.

3. Ensure meetings are two-way conversations

When one person is talking all the time in a meeting, those listening can often become distracted. This can harm the uptake of what you’re saying and therefore the meeting time is wasted. Instead, make the meeting a time for constructive conversation that goes both ways.

Two-way conversations are a great way for your staff to see meetings as a valuable aspect of their work that improves their work.

Conclusion

Meetings are an important aspect of communicating to staff and help make sales targets. They are complicated to run, but with the right mindset from you and your team, you can ensure they’re a productive part of your working week.

The world of B2B selling is fast-paced, and can change rapidly. For this reason, sales training and enablement have become as important as they have ever been. In this landscape, too many companies are not quite hitting the mark when it comes to how prepared their sales teams are.

Where companies fall short

A survey by the Sales Management Association covered 111 companies and more than 80,000 salespeople. It discovered that as little as 43% feel that their sales training and development programmes are effective.

A core component of effective sales enablement is content, and many companies are doing a poor job here too. Reps must have quick and easy access to relevant content such as white papers, case studies, battlecards and updated playbooks if they are to maximise their effectiveness.

A study by CSO Insights found that only around 1/3 of organisations have a genuine content strategy.

Preparation is key

This poor preparation means trouble for the customer experience. The modern enterprise buyer arrives having already done a depth of research, and their expectation will be speed and convenience. If a sales rep lacks the necessary preparation to answer questions or provide essential information, the customer will be unimpressed and move on, and your company loses an opportunity.

For your sales reps to provide the best customer experience possible, there must be a comprehensive approach to sales enablement. The traditional sales ‘boot camp’ simply isn’t enough; you need ongoing digital training that accelerates the ramp up for new sales reps. Sales processes are imparted through personalised learning paths, virtual training and videos to shorten the sales cycle and enhance win rates.

Looking more broadly

In addition to improving enablement for your internal sales force, your partners need to be enabled through a role-based platform that gives them access to material. And you need to integrate these tools with your own sales performance goals to be truly effective. You need common points of contact throughout the lead-to-cash process, ensuring that enablement doesn’t slip through the net.

By improving sales enablement for your reps, you will ensure that your sales people have everything they need to deliver an excellent customer experience.

Are you keen to boost the effectiveness of your sales team by taking the sales performance management route? Then having an effective approach to help you get there is key. With the right approach, individuals will be able to work towards achieving your organisation’s goals and objectives.

Some success factors for sales performance management are:

Regular feedback

Both managers and employees require regular feedback, for instance, conversations about their performance and development. Feedback should highlight areas in which they excel and areas where more effort is required. This helps in supporting continuous learning in the workplace. Meetings should also be fairly balanced, rather than purely criticising employees. Focus on acknowledging their strengths to make them feel more valued and appreciated.

Altering the conversation

Most sales reviews are centred on forecasts and day to day performance. These short term interventions alone are not enough to improve performance. More emphasis should be placed on improving individuals’ skills and abilities through constant training and coaching. Listening to what employees have to say and providing constructive criticism also helps them perform their job more successfully.

Having appropriate goals to reflect the changing business environment

Sales environments are dynamic. As such, there is a constant need to adapt to the changing circumstances. For instance, acquiring a new product will attract new competitors. Consequently, a new strategic plan has to be in place. Every person should know how they fit into the new business landscape. Individual expectations should be constantly reviewed and communicated as and when necessary.

Goal transparency

Effective sales performance management should focus on the different dynamics of a team. A performing team is the sum total of its individual members. With well-aligned goals, it will be easy for each team member to understand how they can help one another better. Sharing ideals and feedback in a team (not just in a management team) makes for a more collaborative and inclusive environment for the whole team to succeed.

Productive reviews require preparation

Performance discussions are only productive when both parties prepare well. For employers, performance appraisals present the perfect opportunity to listen to employees. They should be allowed to voice their concerns and point out specific areas where they require more support say, for example, through special training.

Are you ready to take your organisation to the next level? Start by mapping your sales enablement journey. Always remember that organisations that implement effective sales performance management elevate themselves above their competitors.

One of the primary reasons a business experiences failure or a loss of profit is because they set sales targets that didn’t come in to fruition.

The most common mistake companies and business owners are making is using data from a previous year to simply estimate future growth. This method of prediction not only fails to include any potential variables that may pop up throughout the year, but it can also put unnecessary pressure on staff to achieve large and unrealistic goals. 

There are various guides on how to set sales goals and quotas, but the best way to consider setting future targets is to consider the below:

1. Economic factors

A company needs to delve into their industry and do a little research before setting sales goals and quotas. They need to determine if they are operating in a volatile industry and what their competitors are up to that may impact their results.

2. Current business situation

Every business runs slightly differently, and it is important to consider things that impact revenue. It may be a seasonal operation, or it may be a company that relies solely on referral. Upcoming marketing and advertising plans also play a large part in setting future sales targets and quotas. 

3. The lack of a rolling forecast

Many annuals sales and quota predictions fall short because a company has not implemented a rolling forecast. Rolling forecasts provide detail into specific sales and quotas throughout the year and can be measured against the current business situation and economic factors in those times.

The implementation of a rolling forecast is great for staff morale as it shifts focus from a large sales goal to a more supportive and motivational model. 

When it comes to being realistic about future results, it is always best to call in an objective review or service such as Commissionly. As the first cloud-based sales commission and sales compensations app, Commissionly uses high-tech data analysis tools that can provide results and predictions in mere minutes. 

The easy to use sales commission management software is user-friendly and accessible to all stakeholders and business owners in real time, from wherever they may be located.

While it’s true that Excel and other open-source spreadsheet apps are useful for collecting, tracking and manipulating data, the truth is that these programs were never designed to be a catch-all for all of your company needs – and they’re far from being the best choice for processing or tracking sales commissions.

Yes, Excel can number crunch and perform powerful mathematical equations. However, commissions processing is more than just mathematics. Your sales performance management needs to be accurate, allowing you to identify things like missed commission payments or missed targets. It should help you understand how to create sales goals and implement sales performance management.

If you’re still using Excel, here are just a handful of reasons why you should consider switching to sales commission software :

1. Spreadsheets are error-prone

While apps like Excel or OpenOffice allow you to use custom formulas to help calculate sales commission, there’s no accounting for the fact that human error can and does happen. Incorrect data entry, accidental deletion, and forgetting to save (auto-save isn’t implemented in older versions of Office) can all cause huge issues. These errors can be eliminated by switching to commission tracking software.

2. Spreadsheets are time-consuming

Why spend hours processing commissions in a spreadsheet when you could do the same task in next to no time with dedicated commission tracking software? In a worst-case scenario, the administrator of the commissions spreadsheet could even start rushing things to get the job done quicker, resulting in the sort of errors discussed in the previous point. Ultimately, this means that employees could miss out on their commission – and this could cause arguments or upset company morale.

3. Sales performance management is important

There may be instances where you want to audit the past payments you’ve received – and there’s really no way to achieve that with a spreadsheet. Sales commission software allows you to check monthly payments, commission percentages and individual sales rep payments.

If you’re currently using a spreadsheet to calculate commission, and you’d like a simpler, more efficient way to manage sales performance, why not consider Commissionly?

You can even benefit from a free trial with a demonstration on how to improve your sales performance management. With a host of other powerful features, like sales territory management, sales quota management and sales objective management, you’ll soon find yourself wondering how you ever managed with a simple spreadsheet.

When calculating sales commissions, you’re going to be paying the best to those that have brought in the most business. That goes without saying.

At the same time, you can promote their success to the rest of the team to encourage the same ethics, skills and processes to your other staff so they can emulate their success.

Of course, one problem is that those not performing, and sometimes those that are, believe in a series of myths that supposedly will make them a success. Here are five of those myths debunked that can help overcome the psychology that is stopping some of your sales team from achieving great sales commission:

1. Great salespeople are born and not made

This is completely wrong. A good salesperson can be trained by someone if they have the desire to succeed. The truth is that sales staff who perform better are likely to be the ones who’ve prepared better for their sales call, got a more well-defined strategy for the lead and have a standardised process for recognising opportunities.

2. You have to be pushy and aggressive to be great at sales

This myth is probably born out of stereotypes on television and films like the Boiler Room. However, the best salespeople aren’t pushy. They might be persistent and they might be determined, but there is a fine line between that and being aggressive.

A good salesperson instead talks to a customer about pain points and discusses how they can help solve it by building trust. You can’t build trust by being aggressive.

3. The best salespeople want constant recognition

A lot of people think that fame and fortune are the two motivations of a good salesperson. While recognition for some salespeople is appreciated, they don’t always seek it. Sometimes, just knowing that they’re getting a good pay-check is enough motivation for them. They would happily do the same job in the corner of the office, even if no-one said well-done to them.

4. The best don’t need training

Everyone needs training, regardless of their skill levels. Feedback and improvement is what has got many of the best salespeople to their current position and it will help them improve their performances for many years to come. So perhaps it’s good to have a good performer train with some of the other sales team to show just how far they’ve come and how much further they can go.

5. Top salespeople won’t help out peers

This is the worst myth about the best sales performers in an organisation. Many believe that they’re so cut-throat that they’ll hurt those seeking help. The truth is the opposite.

The best performers want what is best for the company, so they will seek out opportunities to improve others in the team so the company wins. If the company wins, then they will get better rewards.

Once you’ve captured a high-flying sales team, the next challenge is to hang on to them and keep them motivated to grow your business. One of the ways you can do that is by using a cloud-based sales commission software that is easily accessible and which encourages collaborative working as well as rewarding individual talent. 

Foster team spirit

A salesperson who chases individual success without considering the overall impact of their actions jeopardises far more than a few extra pounds in revenue. When sales teams stop working together, they risk undermining the reputation and results of the whole organisation.

A good sales manager knows that collaborative working is essential for building sales in the long-term. Of course, any employee who thrives from earning commission is going to need personal drive and determination and that can sometimes seem incompatible with sharing support and information. But everyone benefits from transparent digital sales compensation software structured to help team members feel safe enough to input their own sales and successes without worrying that their leads might get stolen out from underneath them.

Reward the individual

Individual team members may be encouraged to be secretive if they know that only they will benefit from sales commission. A creative sales compensation structure will combine a personal commission package with team commission rewards.

This type of package encourages all employees to focus on growing sales in a collaborative way rather than be driven solely by their own earnings agendas.

Keep everyone in the loop

No matter how you choose to compensate your salespeople, you need to ensure that they have quick and easy access to real-time sales data including revenue and commission. Using cloud-based software is the ideal solution.

A sales commission dashboard is available to all employees 24 hours a day via their computers, laptops and mobiles. This type of open system links the shop or office to the road. Not only does it pull the whole team together, but it also means that commission for good performance can be tracked and pulled down quickly.

Take care of team working and you stand to boost the achievements of each individual salesperson. The right software can ensure everyone pulls together.

Sales is a varied beast, and every industry, company and even individual has a perspective on how to do it best, but you need consistency from your team.

Thorough onboarding, regular training and a good operational base are the best way to implement your brand standard, so here are some tips on how you can create that atmosphere for your workplace:

1. Have a clear, consistent sales commission scheme which is implemented across the board

Perhaps your commission scheme has different levels to reflect experience or commitment to the company, but it is vital that this should be open and transparent throughout the team.

Without a standard process or structure, resentment, gossip and vindictive behaviour can thrive as people think they are being shortchanged or undervalued. This toxic environment, in turn, leads to high staff turnover and therefore a big loss in potential sales.

2. Create sales goals which are regularly reviewed

Obviously, sales goals are paramount to any business development team, but there is more to it than that. If people feel that they have moving targets which are personal to them, they feel valued and are more motivated to keep on progressing up the ladder. Having a good sales performance management tool in place will save you a wealth of time when structuring this kind of workplace.

3. Keep training sessions short

When training spans hours or even days, concentration dwindles and the capacity of the brain for retaining information is compromised. Many of the most innovative companies around the world instead run short daily or weekly huddles in which a new subject is explored. This serves not only as personal development for your team but is also a great stimulator first thing in the morning when your team might need the cobwebs brushing away.

4. Use the buddy system

By buddying coworkers, they not only have a person to bounce ideas or problems off, perfect for conserving your energy, but they also form more meaningful connections at work. These friendships will keep your staff more satisfied with their job and therefore less likely to leave. A great way to keep your turnover down and retain solid employees!

The sales environment has always been competitive but now you can get ahead of the game by switching to the cloud. If you haven’t thought about a cloud-based compensation management solution yet, maybe you should. Here are three simple reasons why :

1. Quick, easy and cost-effective

The only things you need to switch to cloud-based sales commission software is an internet connection and a computer, laptop or mobile hardware on which to access it.

Unlike traditional office IT, you don’t even need your own server, which helps you save on costly resources and storage space. Installations are on-boarded remotely, and data is stored on the cloud, providing a secure back-up of your organisation’s information in case of an in-house system crash.

That makes switching to the cloud very low risk on all fronts. The software does the work and saves you money, while you and your team focus on building sales and revenue.

2. Accessible from anywhere

As soon as sales commission data is hosted in the cloud, it becomes accessible day and night from anywhere in the world with a Wi-Fi connection.

That means your in-house team can view live sales data as travelling representatives access the sales commission dashboard and update their successes on the road. Team managers can check the performance of individual reps in real time in order to make project decisions. Great performance can be reliably rewarded, while under-achievement can be tackled quickly to ensure better results next time. 

3. Great for team-working

Cloud-based sales systems are especially useful for start-ups and small to medium-sized businesses. They can be scaled up and down to meet changing needs and are flexible enough to pull in team members from all over the county, country or even globe.

Cloud-based software integrates seamlessly into existing sales projects and brings your whole sales team together under one ‘umbrella’. Everyone can track sales commission opportunities and achievements online in order to optimise results. Reports and commission payments can be generated quickly and easily, ensuring that timely reward builds sales motivation.

So why not close the deal, get ahead in the cloud, reward your sales team and grow your profits today?

When it comes to defining sales performance goals, you might wonder what time period to set them at. Every company has different time-frames they like to set goals for, whether it is daily, weekly, monthly or yearly targets.

There are advantages for all of these time-frames, but what is the right way? Here are some thoughts on each of those time periods :

1. Daily targets

Daily targets are probably the most demanding on the morale of a sales team. People who make daily targets can feel motivated to come into work the next day to meet the next target. However, those that don’t make their target for two or three days can quickly become disengaged and this can really affect their performance.

Also, if your company has a high-ticket product/service or a long sales process, daily targets are hard to manage.

2. Weekly targets

These are great for places where prospects are calling into the company on a regular basis and there is a small sales process that can be completed in one phone call. Weekly targets are very motivating and at the end of the week, people can go home feeling satisfied that they’ve had a good week.

Weekly targets can also be great if you’ve got seasonal selling periods. You can define sales performance goals based on the expectations of the market and the call volumes that are coming in.

3. Monthly targets

Monthly targets are the norm for many businesses. It helps with commission calculations as all the sales earned in the month can be calculated in one goal. Monthly targets are less work to manage as you don’t need to recalculate targets every week.

Monthly targets are the perfect solution if you’re looking at a long or complicated sales process. It is also a great solution if you’re working with high-ticket products like cars.

4. Annual targets

Annual targets aren’t used a lot in sales, though some businesses with very-high value products might use it where they are expected to sell only a handful of products a year. 

Annual targets can struggle to motivate sales staff in the long term and so should be used only if monthly targets are going to be too hard to achieve. In addition, it might be best to split annual targets into quarterly targets.