Sales Performance Management Best Practices Blog

Best in Class Sales Organizations communicate exhaustively about goals & goal alignment. For sales teams, much of this communication is memorialized in the Plan Document.

Topics: EVP/Sales Leader, Sales Performance Reporting, Communication/Reporting, CFO/Finance Leader, Sales Compensation Professional, CEO, Sales Professional

To cap or not to cap, that is the question! Caps on earnings and/or payouts have been, and are currently, used in the hopes of limiting the damage of runaway commission payouts that could potentially ;

Topics: Sales Comp Plan Fundamentals, EVP/Sales Leader, CFO/Finance Leader, Sales Compensation Professional, Human Resources

It is important for sales teams to be constantly looking at the market, how it is changing, competitive moves and be prepared to adjust strategy & the rewards as the situation dictates. In a recent blog posting by CSO Insights (http://www.csoinsights.com/), recent research of over 1300 companies suggests that almost 70% of companies review and change their sales comp plans annually while another 13 % will do so on a quarterly or monthly basis. Interestingly, these metric lines up closely with the number of companies that chose to automate the management of sales performance with a system like NetCommissions. While you certainly do not want to tinker with your plans too much, for those who are planning to take the time to sit down mid-year and examine how your comp plans are working thus far, the following three considerations may help keep your plans in line with industry best practice (there are many more than three, but hey, this is a blog and we need to keep it short & sweet).

Topics: EVP/Sales Leader, CFO/Finance Leader, Sales Compensation Professional, Human Resources

The vast majority of companies that are considering the use of a Sales Performance Management tool such as NetCommissions use an accrual basis of accounting as opposed to cash accounting. Accrual accounting requires that primary expenses, such as sales commissions, must appear on the income statement in the same period that the sales is reported, no matter when the commissions are actually paid.

Topics: Sales Performance Reporting, CFO/Finance Leader, Sales Compensation Professional, Human Resources, Sales Operations

In every sales discussion we are always asked to define what differentiates NetCommissions from all the other vendors in the SPM marketplace. We have found that communicating the basic assumptions and principals that NetCommissions is built upon have evoked comments that sound much like “wow, that’s much different than the others we’ve talked to”.  So here is a bit of insight into what is a very unique approach to Sales Performance Management;

Topics: EVP/Sales Leader, CTO, CFO/Finance Leader, Sales Compensation Professional

One of the hidden drivers of the accuracy of sales compensation payout calculations is a process known commonly as “Prior Period Adjustments” (PPA) or alternatively as “Retroactive Adjustments”. These types of adjustments are very complex to execute correctly but, done right, unlock a level of value that alone can often justify an investment to automate & improve your Sales Performance Management process.

Topics: Retroactive Adjustments, Sales Comp Plan Fundamentals, CFO/Finance Leader, Sales Compensation Professional

Topics: SaaS Sales Compensation, Sales Comp Plan Fundamentals, EVP/Sales Leader, CTO, Sales Compensation Professional, Human Resources

The linkage between your sales comp plans and administering them in a world class fashion is critical to successfully transforming sales compensation into a competitive weapon. The following snapshot walks us through the basics of how to address several fundamental questions related to plan design that you should be thinking about every time you review your plans and their design:

Topics: Sales Comp Plan Fundamentals, plan design, Sales Compensation Professional

Topics: Sales Comp Plan Fundamentals, EVP/Sales Leader, CTO, CFO/Finance Leader, Sales Compensation Professional, CEO, Human Resources, Sales Professional

Topics: Sales Comp Plan Fundamentals, EVP/Sales Leader, CFO/Finance Leader, Sales Compensation Professional, Sales Performance Metrics & KPI's