Commissions, Bonuses & Incentives

The field of sales can be a very lucrative venture for anyone willing to invest the time and effort required to make their sales numbers. Sales puts you in charge of your financial future and can give you a lifelong career that will be satisfying and provide you with financial freedom. It’s no secret that you have to sell in order to make money and be successful. The more you sell the more you will make and vise Versa. The amount of work that you dedicate towards making sales will improve your numbers in commissions, incentives, and bonuses.

Making a Commission

Most sales jobs are based on commission. A commission means that for every product you sell you will receive a percentage of the profit. If you sell a 150-dollar vacuum cleaner and your commission on that product is 5 percent you will have 7.50 added to your paycheck every time you sell one. This may not sound like much, but if you make 9.00 per hour and work full time this can add up. If you sold 60 vacuum cleaners in the pay period and worked 40 hours you would make 450 in commission and 360 in base pay bringing your gross total to 810 every week. Not too shabby for selling 30 vacuums a week. Another example could be basic commission for a car salesman. He makes 11.00 per hour and makes a commission of 100 for every compact car, 150 for every sedan, 200 for every truck and 250 for every SUV. This week the salesman worked 40 hours and sold 3 compact cars 2 sedans a truck and 2 SUVs. At the end of the week he made 440 in base pay plus 750 in commission bringing his gross total for the week to 1190 dollars. The more you sell the more you make.

Bonuses and Incentives

Most companies offer their sales reps bonuses and incentives to keep them motivated and excited about selling for the company. An example of a basic incentive would be every time you sell 100 products you get an extra 100 dollars on your paycheck. Or when you reach 500 products sold you get a 200 gift card to your favorite retailer. These incentives give the sales rep a goal to achieve and something to look forward to for all the hard work they put in. A bonus is similar to an incentive, but it is usually given after a predetermined amount of time. For example, every quarter your company might reward the top 5 sales reps with 500 dollars’ cash. This money is a bonus on top of all the incentives the top 5 sales rep may have already received. Once again the more you sell the more you make. You get out of selling what you put into it. You are in control of how much money you get on your paycheck. If you sell very little your paycheck would be relatively smaller than if you sold more.

So, in selling you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you sell!

When it comes to sales there are three sales soul searching questions you can ask yourself to stay focused and be the most effective sales person possible.

Is This Product Something I believe in?

If you are trying to sell a product you wouldn’t even buy yourself chances are you are not selling it well. You may believe that a good salesperson can sell ice to an Eskimo, but it wouldn’t be without a clear conscience and often not for repeat business. It all depends on what you sell and how you sell it. If you can’t convince yourself it is a good product, you will never be able to convince some else no matter how charming you think you are. You may have started out with passion but the same old thing day after day is getting you down. Look inside yourself to find that drive and passion again. Remind yourself of the positive outcome that comes with accomplishing your goal. Look back at what you were doing differently when you had drive and vigor and pull it out again. This will reflect in every sales meeting. With passion and drive you can sell almost anything because you believe in yourself and want to convince people they can’t live without the product that means so much to you.

Can I sincerely say I respect the people I work with?

Look around and watch what is going on. Truth be told most people don’t have to do this. They already know what is going on around them. What you need to ask yourself is: are you okay with it? Whether you have people who are constantly passing the buck, or clients who are trying to get away with murder with unreasonable demands, you will eventually have a moment when you have to decide if you can continue working with these people or not. If you are starting to feel like a doormat, are always biting your tongue when you are speaking with your boss and in general don’t enjoy the company of the team around you it will be impossible for you to be an effective sales professional.

Do I care about my clients?

The last question to ask yourself is if you still care about your clients. If you don’t they’ll know it and it will reflect in your sales. Find a way to get back to your clients roots or find your way to the door.

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If your sales team needs to ask some hard and fast soul searching questions motivational keynote speaker and sales expert Doug Dvorak can help. Visit http://dougdvorak.com/contactus.asp for information.

When it comes to motivation, many of us have it, but there are some of us that do not. Let’s explore exactly what motivation is. Motivation is a strength that induces us to take action on things that we want to accomplish. For every situation there is a different motivator that may cause us to take action and accomplish a goal or succeed in an endeavor.

Generally, there are six different types of motivation fit for six different situations that people experience, they are; Incentive, Fear, Achievement, Growth, Power and Social.

• Incentive motivation is a form of motivation in which you are seeking a reward.
• Fear motivation is a type of motivation that is associated with consequences.
• Achievement is a type of motivation in which you become determined to be as competent as you can.
• Growth motivation deters you from becoming comfortable and being stagnant in life, but allows you to always look for ways to change internally and externally to better yourself and your situation.
• Power is a type of motivation in which one desire to control more aspects of their own lives as well as other peoples lives.
• Social motivation is a type of motivation that a person gains when they feel the need to be accepted by others, generally a specific group. Now that we know a little bit about the six types of motivation, let’s look at the key to keeping your team ambitious and successful.

Motivation is a key factor to being successful in sales. The motivations that most sales teams possess are incentive and achievement, but those motivations often disappear throughout one’s career if a person is not reaching his or her goals. A salesperson needs something else. If you are the head of the sales department you should find ways to keep your team engage, determined, ambitious and successful too.

The key to keeping your team ambitious and successful is to encourage them constantly and consistently; if you find that hard to do because some people are simply not motivated, setting up quarterly seminars and having a motivational speaker come and talk to them is a great first step to keeping them ambitious and successful. You can even hire a very funny keynote speaker that could “break the ice”, and encourage your team in a very fun and entertaining way to meet daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly quotas. Providing incentives on top of this, whether it is compensation, time off or another reward, will give a boost to each individual’s efforts that are motivated by incentives. The professional motivational speaker hired to stimulate your sales force will also increase their self-esteem, social recognition, and overall the individual’s potential as a whole.

Most people that are in management positions are seeking the motivations of growth, power, and social recognition. As managers, in order to obtain growth, power, and social recognition, you must first possess the motivation to encourage your employees. Your employees will be your ticket to growing higher within the company, giving you the sensation of controlling a specific team within the company, and even giving you that social recognition that you are striving to obtain amongst your peers. Motivating and uplifting your sales force will stimulate productivity and quality work. Another key to success as a manager is to make sure that the employees are being treated fairly and equally. By doing this, you and your team will remain ambitious and successful, because your team will be comfortable and will be consistently looking for more incentives once they have experienced their first incentives (most likely a big juicy commission check).

As leaders, the motivation that you are seeking is primarily social. How you are perceived in the eyes of the public will be a reflection of how your employees perceive you in the workplace. As a leader, the key to keeping your team ambitious and successful will be to lead with integrity, this will automatically motivate your team by giving them a sense of belonging, trust, and pride while working with your organization. Making sure that every member of the team is performing well will ensure successful results in the working environment. Another key to building an ambitious and successful team is to make sure you are an excellent communicator, and especially a great listener. With good communication skills you will possess the motivational power to influence others. By showing your organization that you care, whether it’s through a mentorship program, encouraging them, or allowing them to be a partner in the organization, your organization/company will not fall short of success.

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Related Article: Motivating Factors: How To Create A More Effective Team

Beliefs and behaviors can dramatically improve sales results. Beliefs are what forms behaviors. They will dictate how you react to particular situations. The way you portray yourself when trying to make a sale will be noticed by the customer. Even if you are trying to make a sale over the telephone, they will pick up on the vibes that you give off. If you don’t really believe in your product or service, then your customer probably won’t either. If you are passionate about the product you are selling, then they may want to learn more. In order to increase sales, you must have the ability to be flexible in changing your mind. If you are seeing good results, then your beliefs are probably ok. If you receive no sales, time and time again, then you may need to rethink your beliefs and how you behave.

Beliefs Drive Actions and Actions Drive Results

The sales industry is tough, and wanting good results isn’t enough. It also isn’t enough to work harder on the assumption that hard work alone will produce results. You can present to all of the clients that you want, but if you aren’t doing discovery work to know the products you are selling, you probably won’t believe in your product enough to be able to pitch it correctly. Believing in yourself and your sales performance will help boost your confidence to conduct your sales pitch. To be able to have a great performance in sales, you must be able to change your beliefs. Don’t be stubborn about making changes. Many people don’t like change in general, but in this case it is essential. Once your beliefs have changed, you then have the ability to change your actions. Change is the best way to get great results.

Things to Consider

If you hope to improve your overall sales performance, there are a couple of things that you will need to consider. The first thing you will need to do is to determine what strongly held beliefs are serving you well, and which ones aren’t. You will then need to determine what actions those beliefs cause you to take or not to take. Another thing to consider is the performance of others. If you know someone that is already producing excellent sales results, then maybe you should contact them to see what they are doing. Knowledge is the key, and you need to adapt to change to make things better for yourself and your sales department.

Related Post: Embrace Change & Manage A Smooth Transition

If you are like many companies, you want to employ the right people for the job. However, there are many titles and positions out there, making it harder to figure out which one you need and which skill set will best serve your sales organization. Therefore, you should consider the differences between a chief sales officer (CSO), Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) or a Chief Customer Officer (CCO). Each of these titles is different and will provide you with a different set of skills.

CSO

A CSO or a sales director is one of the highest managers in the organization. They are responsible for marketing and sales. They deal with marketing, sales of products/services, customer relationship management and decide how to best align the company’s objectives with customer needs. Their primary responsibility is to sell services and goods and also plan how to best sell those goods/services. They work together with the CEO to set product portfolios and strategies and work to balance the organization’s needs with the customer’s. They may also determine the best channels to use and how to maintain strategic relationships with clients.

CRO

The CRO is an executive officer responsible for the processes relating to revenue generation in the organization. They are tasked with integration and alignment of all revenue-related tasks, which can include customer support, pricing, sales, marketing and revenue management.

They will work with your company’s executive team to communicate and create the company vision and then use that vision as part of their long-term strategy for creating new opportunities and markets.

CCO

The CCO is a newer title that has recently gained popularity over the past decade. They usually focus on customer retention, acquisitions, service, and relationships. They must figure out how to keep current customers, as well as how to get new ones and implement activities that will keep them happy. They can then help salespeople and others in the company understand what to do and how to do it.

In many cases, the Chief Customer Officer will also be a CRO or a CSO, especially in smaller companies. If you’re wondering which one you need, you likely need all three. If you want sales to grow, you’ll need someone to understand customers, someone who knows how to generate revenue and someone who knows how to get more sales.