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How We Can Help Your Organization

Better Sales Comp Consultants – our team creates better sales compensation plans that drive better sales results. A sales compensation program should be a powerful enabler of sales success, and we design incentive plans that focus, motivate, and reward salespeople to achieve their best results.

When considering new and better sales compensation plans, everyone seems to have an opinion. But views are often limited to “how we’ve have always done things” or “I saw this at my last company”. Sometimes the best solution isn’t perfectly clear while competing ideas and nagging uncertainty undermine the confidence in your sales compensation program. That’s where the team at Better Sales Comp Consultants can help.

Our consulting work builds confidence, as we help create the best sales compensation plan designs that drive your optimal results.

Case Studies

Retaining New Talent and Driving Sales

Project:Transitioning from stagnant legacy commission plans to a more growth-focused goal-based plan methodology.
Industry:High Tech (Software and Services)
Issue:The client was wrestling with having a few consistently high paid earners and little talent pipeline from high turnover of new salespeople. The sales compensation plans were based on absolute license and professional services commissions, without consideration of account or territory assignment. Paying on a flat commission rate meant salespeople on the biggest and best patches earned the highest pay, with little notion as to whether one’s results were optimizing potential opportunities. New hires invariable had the worst patches and could not earn at market levels for 2 to 3 years or until a better patch opened up. Overall growth had stalled.
Solution:BSC first gained consensus that not all account or territory assignments were created equally. Sales leaders felt opportunities were not being maximized, as salespeople attempted to hoard accounts and many were not getting enough focus. The new plans incorporated volume goals that factored in the potential in one’s assigned patch. Growth against expectations become a critical driver of assessing one’s performance and determining the resulting pay.
Impact:Setting and allocating goals helped the sales organization focus, and the company moved from missing corporate targets to exceeding them. Account assignments become more logical as hoarding accounts was no longer an absolute benefit. A more rigorous deployment model ensured accounts received more optimal coverage. Success and earnings were evaluated relative to expected production, and the best salespeople rose to the top and earned strong upside by driving significant growth. Meanwhile, new salespeople received more realistic targets with more appropriate earnings; retention improved as did the overall talent across the sales organization.

Case Studies

Driving Sales Growth Store Route by Route

Project: Driving optimal performance across over 14,000 sales representatives
Industry: Consumer Products (Direct Store Delivery)
Issue:One of North America’s largest consumer products direct-store-delivery companies was facing increasing questions and doubts surrounding the sales compensation program for its Route Sales Representatives (RSRs). Once regarded as an elite employer in the DSD space, sales managers were encountering challenges recruiting and retaining RSR talent, and overall, company sales results were flat after years of consistent growth. Also of concern, the organization had over 800 compensation programs in place to pay its 14,000 RSRs, so stakeholders openly wondered about the rationale behind the current pay program.
Solution:Using an inclusive, comprehensive, and diligent assessment approach, we reviewed the performance of the current plans, identified the needs of new plans, and created a new methodology for delivering the RSR pay program. The current program was based largely on flat commission, with no base salary, and limited upside or downside risk. Hundreds of RSR interviews revealed that the plans were driving minimal motivation, and high performers were at increasing risk of turnover. Among various plan improvements, the biggest shift was tying RSR pay to the achievement against appropriate route goals, rather than using a pure commission program that had lost its effectiveness.
Impact:The organization embarked upon an extensive piloting program to test the new plan designs. Results after two years have bee n considered stellar. Revenue growth in the pilot areas has been over 3%, versus flat growth in the control areas. Costs have remained relatively flat. The revenue increase has represented significant profit enhancement, and plan are being made to roll out the new designs to the remaining sales regions across the organization.

Case Studies

Evolving to Role-Based Sales Compensation Plans

Project: Helping a company move from a one-sized-fits all plan design that no longer fit its sales roles and coverage needs.
Industry:High Tech (Software and Hardware)
Issue: Our client had followed a relatively simple plan design that feature one primary metric and pay line. As new product strategies had emerged and they revamped their customer segmentation strategy, concerns arose whether the one-size-fits all plan truly fit any of the new roles and strategies well. Sales force motivation stalled,turnover increased, and results were continually below expectations.
Solution: BSC performed a diligent assessment phase including 25 interviews and guiding internal resources to perform a suite of plan analytics. We confirmed that the current compensation program was not creating the right strategic focus on new products nor the solution-selling results the company desired in its largest Enterprise accounts. BSC worked with a cross-function global Design Team to design new incentive plan details for each role including the desired pay mix, plan measures that included total and focused product results, more motivational pay lines (with downside and upside along with appropriate cost protections) and more evolved plans in alignment with proven cross-industry best practices.
Impact: The organization experienced an immediate increase in salesperson focus and motivation. New product strategies were supported and growth in particularly new product lines increased as much as 250%. The overall sales force experienced some appropriate attrition of below average performers who couldn’t meet the new pay-for-performance expectations while top performers were more rewarded and celebrated for superior results.

Reviews from Our Clients

Software Industry ($500M+)

Head of Total Rewards

“Over the course of my career, I’ve had an opportunity to work with different sales comp consultants, and the work that BSC has done for our organization is the best I’ve seen in 20 years. What we needed, especially given the timeline, was hands-on consulting, helping us with the strategic design elements as well as digging down to the individual plan mechanics for 20+ plans, and BSC did exceptional work on the project!”

SaaS Industry ($250M+)

Sales Operations

“The BSC team has been great to work with. Clinton and Ted were really helpful with a project that we tackled late in the year, with tight deadlines, and working with a team on our side that was very new to the company and / or their roles. We are hitting our committed plan rollout deadlines only because of the BSC support. High responsiveness (day or night), great accountability (always met every deadline), very flexible (we replaced our head of sales mid-project and included our CEO instead), and high personalization (custom solutions for us). Highly recommended!”

Our Blog

Read Our Latest Articles,
Tips & News

Clinton Gott, Compensation Costs, Insights, Sales Compensation, Sales Compensation Design

Facing the Great Resignation: Using Sales Compensation to Shift from Defense to Offense

A sub 5% unemployment rate. Studies from CNBC and others suggesting over 55% of employees are looking to change jobs. Linkedin recruiters wearing out keyboards…

by Clinton GottNovember 10, 2021

Supporting Your Sales Compensation Program During the Coronavirus Crisis

The emergence of Covid-19 means we are all living through unprecedented and uncertain times. While addressing health and other personal concerns are obviously paramount, the…

by Clinton GottApril 15, 2020

Defining Your Sales Compensation Annual Roadmap

As is often the case, this year is probably flying by faster than one could possibly imagine. High workloads and competing interests can lead to…

by Clinton GottJune 2, 2019

Sales Compensation Plan Designs – Cost of Sales vs. Cost of Labor Models

One of the most common and significant topics during sales compensation design engagements focuses on the right mechanic to use – whether to use a Cost of Sales or Cost of Labor model.

by Clinton GottSeptember 9, 2018

How We Can Help Your Organization

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Best Practices Knowledge / Real-World Application

We Teach You About Sales Compensation

“It Takes a Village”

Case Studies

Retaining New Talent and Driving Sales

Case Studies

Driving Sales Growth Store Route by Route

Case Studies