Each week, we will highlight one of BSC’s Top Ten Tips from our acclaimed Design Guide to Success. To download the full guide, click on to the Articles page.
4. Demand Strategic Selling Inputs
This piece of advice derives from the milestone gates identified in Tip Two. Offered directly to the capable and helpful human resources or sales operations professional (or whomever “owns” sales compensation plan creation), our advice is to noisily and emphatically push back on strategic leaders and/or sales management if and when they are slow to identify strategy or provide clarity in the selling roles. Say it with us, “effective sales compensation plans derive from clear sales role definition”. Now, say it again, and if needed, say it to those individuals.
Encourage them to follow the milestone timeline we portrayed earlier. While ambitious in some environments, moving directionally toward such a timeline is essential for providing enough time to successfully assess needs, construct plans, and test impacts. You may not completely win the fight for a completely enlightened and methodical process, but the goal should be to takes steps in that direction each and every year. The quality of the sales compensation plans, your performance, and the organization’s acceptance of new plans all depend on it!
Do you know what we find to be the number one reason design efforts fail or struggle? Answer: incomplete, late, or poorly delineated sales role definition. Organizations are better served by breaking out the phases of changing the job versus changing the plan. Involving the right strategic selling inputs is the essential predecessor to one’s design work.