Not consulting stakeholders

A big mistake is giving the job of creating sales goals to one person and expecting them to complete it in isolation without consulting with other stakeholders. It’s important to find out how the needs of customers will impact your sales in the coming months, while also maintaining an awareness of the competition and the way their plans and marketing could impact you. Sales goal setting is a team effort, so make sure you have everyone pitch in.

Looking backwards instead of forwards

Although the sales history of your company can shed valuable insight into future trends, it’s important to be focussed on forecasting rather than reporting on what’s already happened. When it comes to sales goals, they need to be firmly grounded in where you’re going, not where you’ve already been.

Not giving employees an incentive to work harder

Your sales staff thrive on the commission you give them, the promise of earning more driving them to do a better job and earn more money for your business. However, by promising all your staff an increase in salary every year regardless of your financial situation, they may lose some of that enthusiasm. This could skew your sales targets, as your top performers may not perform quite as well. Make sure you reassess any commission or pay increases each time you set new goals and base them upon the current financial climate.

No room for flexibility

You might think that setting a goal and sticking to it is a good thing, but extreme rigidity actually limits you. You need to make sure your goals remain achievable and adapt as you realise which targets you’ll be able to meet and which you won’t. There’s no sense striving for a goal just because you set it at the beginning of the year if there are other areas that could benefit more from your time and energy.

Commissionly gives your salesforce real-time updates on performance, serving to motivate and challenge the whole team to achieve. We also provide insights and intelligence to your financial managers and leadership teams, helping you to forecast and strategically plan for the future. We work with SMBs and larger businesses around the world to help them to work smarter and achieve more.

To book your free demo or start a complimentary 14-day trial of our sales commission software simply contact our team anytime.

The loss of motivation

There tends to be a predictable curve when it comes to most sales staff. They’ll start off with a lot of enthusiasm but it eventually begins to taper off. Keeping that enthusiasm going is a challenge for any company as you still want to drive sales. 

This can mean hiring more staff with all the expenditure involved, despite the fact you already have all the staff you need.

The better solution

Companies can be hesitant to give out financial incentives as they feel as though they are giving away money. In reality, the old adage rings true: you need to spend money to make money. A fair and balanced incentive structure will lead to better results. 

It’s not just effort that will be improved but also happiness. A more harmonious workplace is one that will naturally be more productive. Not only that, but other expenditures such as recruitment will be vastly reduced. 

Not just money

It’s not just cash that gets sales teams incentivised, it’s prizes too. Running competitions will bring out everyone’s competitive side as they strive to be the winner. Sales staff respond a lot better to positive rather than negative stimulus.

This is where sales goals software can help you in more ways than one. You can make sales performance goals fun rather than being an unachievable target. It helps to create an overall work environment that works harder and therefore earns more money for you. 

Keep everyone happy

While it might seem counter-intuitive to give away money, the overall effect is more sales being made. Sales management software is able to help achieve those results. If you need to update your sales commission software, contact Commissionly today.

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.