startupminion

BDM

Ways to structure sales team incentives to promote teamwork

working at a startup with management that says it encourages team work among sales people (working on deals tgt), but have not baked it into the sales commissions plan.

i'd like to suggest sth for that, as i believe most pple are self motivated and without the right incentive structure, deal sharing or teamwork cld become very contrived.

seeking ideas on what u've seen before in terms of sales comms structures that try to encourage teamwork, and if it actually worked. thanks!!

🍾 Commission

🤠 Culture

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TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

i would like to know what management things "team work" looks like and why they want it to happen.

expecting AEs to take time and work on other ppls problems is never going to happen.

What COULD happen, is have a dedicated time per week where the team gets together and reviews one persons deal. then everyone can make suggestions on how to help.

the manager could even pick deals them self, and suggest it to the team anonymously.

like: "ok if have a deal where the demo has happened and we are trying to get next steps scheduled, what would you do?"
its not calling out a certain AE but the manager can have an AE in mind.
make sense?

startupminion

Executive

BDM

that sounds like a win/loss meeting which we have put in place. So that’s more to share best practices and to have collective learning from each other’s experiences. Teamwork is loosely defined as collaboration on deals, working tgt on deals.

antiASKHOLE

Tycoon

Bravado's Resident Asshole

In my experience, deal sharing can get quite sticky. As it goes back to grade school when we had to do group projects. One person does the majority of the work and the others get the benefit/grade or in this case, commission.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Really need a better understanding of exactly how much teamwork they’re looking for. Is it literally working a deal collaboratively, or is it sharing best practices or being able to pick up the phone and get guidance?

Finally, I have to admit, I know a lot of abbreviations, but I’ve been wracking my brain and cannot figure out what “sth” is.

startupminion

Executive

BDM

Sth = something. what the head of sales said was to work on deals together… getting guidance is also a good part of it i think.

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

I've never seen a plan that encourages this. Only ones that solve disputes if an account changes hands during the course of a deal or falls outside normal rules of engagement.

Maximas

Tycoon

Senior Sales Executive

Exactly.

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

The encourage team work up to the point where money gets involved. What they really mean is - help each other out but don't lose sight of your own goal.
I know you are well meaning, but it won't go anywhere.

punishedlad

Tycoon

Business Development Team Lead

The only way, in my experience, to make a truly collaborative sales team that isn't trying to cut each other's throats when working deals together is to get rid of the commission structure altogether. Pay them a generous base and provide bonus incentives.

startupminion

Executive

BDM

And would the bonus incentives be based on individual performance still? Or based on team targets?

punishedlad

Tycoon

Business Development Team Lead

Optimal situation IMO is a mix of both. A set target for each rep that can be shared across deals (i.e., you've got two guys working a $500k deal, they both get credited for the win and the $500k goes to both of their individual targets) And then an additional team target on a quarterly/yearly basis where there's a big payout for everyone if the target is reached.

startupminion

Executive

BDM

This sounds good actually. But knowing management, they probably would want to split the $500k instead of counting the full $500k towards each rep’s targets. And i suppose that’s where it cld potentially get ugly?

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Agreed. This could get murky.

HVACexpert

Politicker

sales engineer

I’ve seen something called a “matrix” where based on influence, who’s customer is buying, work put in, etc. then commission is split in various ways.

That being said in my opinion, this is a CULTURE issue. If your leaders/mentors/experienced professionals are sharing commissions and working together and setting aside ego, then that will drive others to do the same. But if managers and lead sales tend to prioritize being protective of commissions or defensive, it will force others to be the same way.

My last company many individuals took advantage of others when splitting commissions, sometimes it got ugly.

startupminion

Executive

BDM

What about having a portion of total comms be tied to team targets being reached? Has anyone seen sth like that?

FoodForSales

Politicker

What do they mean by "team work"? Like "we are all in this together"? Or something else? You need to be careful before proposing things like this.

startupminion

Executive

BDM

To work on deals together it seems. And now i’m getting a little scared lol - what exactly do i need to be careful about?

TheEnglishMajor

Opinionated

Account Executive

I would encourage spiffs that are icing on the cake -- where reps do not have to rely on others to make their full commission, but you can use additional incentives to work together
Couple of examples:
Everyone on the team closes 2 deals this quarter, everyone gets a $1K bonus (we used this one recently and added that each individual rep who closes 4 gets an addition $2k on top of that, so it encourages people both personally and as a team)
Another example I've seen work (using basic activity metrics as an easy example) would be the everyone or no one approach. For instance, when I was on an inside sales team we would have team contests where there would be a broad goal, for instance, say 25 new meetings set. It does not matter how many people get, HOWEVER, everyone needs to at least get one. If someone doesn't participate, it ruins it for everyone. Surprisingly helps reps egg each other on, but I wouldn't see this working for more seasoned sales roles

Justatitle

Big Shot

Account Executive

Accelerators on comp when the team is above x percentage.

nomdeguerre

Executive

Account executive

Smart sales people will only do the things they are measured on. There’s going to be no patience for a rep who doesn’t make their number but they were great at team work. I don’t think this idea is ever going to work.

RedLightning

Politicker

Mid-Market AE

Maybe a bonus based on team wide quota attainment?

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startupminion

Ways to structure sales team incentives to promote teamwork

21 comment

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