Executive Summary: This article explores the four reasons why having a sales commission partner during an economic downturn is essential. It highlights the importance of accurate payout management, reducing sales rep attrition, and automating calculations. But most importantly keeping the salesforce motivated to sell.
In times of economic downturn, businesses face unique challenges in maintaining their financial stability and driving sales performance.
One area that plays a crucial role in this landscape is sales commission management.
So why should you invest in a sales commission partner?
More importantly, which tool is the best for you?
In this article, we’ll delve into the four key reasons why such a partnership is essential during an economic downturn. We’ll also cover the top four sales commission tools along with their key features and pricing.
4 Reasons You Need a Sales Commission Partner in Economic Downturn
In an economic downturn, partnering with a sales commission provider becomes essential for several reasons:
1. Reducing sales rep attrition
The Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule is a concept that suggests that roughly 80% of the results or outcomes come from 20% of the causes or inputs.
How is it relevant to sales?
In the context of sales, it implies that a significant portion of sales revenue (approximately 80%) is generated by a small percentage of high-performing sales representatives (around 20%).
That’s why it’s crucial to retain those 20%.
How can a sales commission partner help do that?
A sales commission partner ensures a transparent commission structure, providing sales reps with clear visibility into how their commissions are calculated and paid.
This transparency builds trust and reduces frustration among sales reps, making them less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere.
Moreover, accurate and timely payout of commissions is essential in maintaining sales rep satisfaction. It reduces dissatisfaction and motivates sales reps to stay with the company.
With the help of a sales commission partner, companies can automate the commission calculation and payout process, ensuring that sales reps receive their earnings accurately and promptly.
2. Payout errors
Accurate commission payouts build trust and loyalty between the company and its sales teams. Conversely, payout errors like miscalculations or delays in commission payments can encourage them to spend time on unproductive activities.
According to this Forbes study, sales reps spend 35.2% of their time selling and 65% on everything else, but not selling.
Additionally, one common practice that arises due to payout errors is shadow accounting.
What’s shadow accounting?
Shadow accounting refers to sales reps independently tracking their sales and commissions to verify the accuracy of the company's calculations.
This practice consumes valuable time and resources, leading to reduced productivity as sales reps spend more time on administrative tasks rather than focusing on sales activities.
With a sales commission partner, organizations can eliminate the need for shadow accounting by providing transparent and accurate commission calculations.
This helps build trust between the company and its sales reps.
And when sales representatives have confidence in the accuracy and fairness of the commission process, they are more likely to remain committed to the company's goals and objectives, even during challenging economic conditions.
3. Manual calculations
Manual calculation is one of the biggest pain points in the RevOps function.
Automating calculations can help:
- Save valuable time and resources, allowing sales teams to focus on revenue-generating activities instead of spending hours on manual commission calculations.
- Ensure accurate and fair commission payouts, maintaining trust and motivation among sales representatives.
- Sales teams access up-to-date information on their sales performance and earnings. This allows them to track their progress, evaluate their performance, and adjust their strategies accordingly.
Overall, eliminating manual calculations through a sales commission partner brings efficiency, accuracy, and transparency to the commission process, helping businesses navigate economic downturns with confidence and optimize their sales performance.
4. Long term cost-savings
A sales commission partner can provide valuable insights and analytics on sales performance, customer behavior, and market trends.
For instance, businesses can track and measure key metrics such as sales conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and revenue generated per salesperson. This helps them identify the most profitable sales activities and focus their efforts on high-value opportunities.
Additionally, it enables sales teams to identify areas of inefficiency or underperformance in their sales processes. They can then take steps to eliminate unnecessary expenses.
This proactive approach helps minimize risks, optimize investments, and reduce costs in the long run.
Top 4 Sales Commission Tools
Here’s a quick look at the top 4 sales commission tools you can use to effectively manage sales commissions and optimize sales performance within your organization:
1. ElevateHQ
ElevateHQ is a commission automation tool designed for small to medium-sized businesses. It offers a range of features that help streamline and automate commission management processes.
Key features:
- Track commissions: A unified dashboard that lets you keep a tab on commission earnings.
- Log deals: Use custom objects to log their deals directly in Elevate, making it a system of record.
- Perform What-if analysis: Simulate possible scenarios to see your potential earnings.
- Useful nudges: To provide timely and personalized reminders and suggestions to sales representatives.
- Set up audit trails: Users can set up audit trails, approval flows, override rules, and access controls to ensure compliance and accuracy in the commission process.
Pricing:
Pricing plans start at $25/month per user.
2. Performio
Performio is an enterprise-grade incentive compensation management software that automates and simplifies calculating and managing sales commissions.
Key features:
- Calculate sales commissions by automating the process and eliminating the need for manual spreadsheet calculations.
- Can handle complex commission structures and business rules with ease.
- Incentive plan simulations to model different commission structures and scenarios to optimize their incentive plans.
- Performance dashboards and analytics to track sales performance, commission earnings, and other key metrics.
Pricing:
Book a demo to get in touch.
3. Xactly Incent
Xactly Incent is a cloud-based platform that helps organizations improve their sales performance and motivate their sales teams.
Key features:
- Design and manage their sales compensation plans. The software provides tools to create and modify commission plans, quotas, and incentives.
- Helps sales organizations manage territories and quotas, ensuring fair and equitable distribution of sales opportunities.
- Offers real-time reporting and analytics, allowing sales organizations to track their performance and identify areas for improvement. It provides dashboards and customizable reports to help users monitor their progress.
- Automates commission calculations, ensuring accuracy and reducing errors that can occur with manual calculations.
Pricing:
Request a quote to get the exact pricing.
4. CaptivateIQ
CaptivateIQ is a sales commission software that helps businesses transform their sales commissions from an expense into a driver for their organization.
Key features:
- Design and customize commission plans based on your unique requirements, supporting different commission structures, tiers, thresholds, and more.
- Offers multiple integrations to help businesses consolidate commission-related data from multiple sources.
- Automates commission calculations, saving time and reducing errors
- Provides sales representatives with transparent commission dashboards.
Pricing:
Contact sales for custom pricing.
Wrap Up
As businesses face the realities of an economic downturn, it becomes increasingly important to optimize every aspect of revenue generation.
A sales commission partner can be a valuable asset in this pursuit.
By ensuring accurate payout management, motivating the salesforce, retaining top talent, and enhancing operational efficiency, a sales commission partner helps businesses weather the storm and position themselves for success.
Investing in such a partnership becomes imperative for businesses seeking to navigate economic downturns and emerge stronger on the other side.
