4 snack-size takeaways from sales performance management leaders
Hi there,
As September wraps up, it’s a reminder we can all prioritize continuous learning. The new-sneakers-back-to-school energy isn’t just for kids!
In this issue, we're distilling some key insights from our recent virtual conference to ensure that—even if you couldn't attend live or watch the recordings—you get some value in less time than it takes to enjoy your coffee. ☕
As you have early discussions on compensation plan revisions for the next fiscal year, here are some of the snack-size gems from NUDGE '24 speakers we're still talking about at Forma.ai headquarters:
1. Translating your data fluency into exec storytelling for buy-in is repetitive, hard work
When planning compensation and looking at different performance metrics, like ARR or ACV (instead of bookings alone, say)— it's on you to bring your stakeholders along. Not everyone's a career-level comp professional with mad data skills, so consider how you're cultivating data fluency in others, and helping your sales leaders, finance, and ops teams understand the info recommendations are built on.
- Most importantly, are your findings just data on slides?
- Connected to what you know is most important in the business strategy, can you instead stress how your data fits into the broader business narrative and stands to make real change to revenue, retention, adoption, and expansion?
2. Proactively prevent sales comp nightmares with clearer terms & conditions
For designing compensation plans that are difficult to exploit, clearly defined terms and conditions are key. As you collect qualitative feedback from reps this Fall—and review real patterns in your year-round comp assurance or auditing process—ensure your T&Cs are up to date.
- Aim to provide a detailed governance framework for behaviors that are vs. aren't accepted.
- Think about all potential what-if scenarios, including things like quota relief (re: what happens when there are contract cancellations, a customer goes out of business, etc.).
- Here's more on how our experts would tackle various scenarios.
3. Plot big-bet spiffs for 2025 to combat seasonality now
There's only so much you can do over the year with your limited spiff budget (it'll be ~10% of the total compensation spend, as a rule of thumb). On proactive spiffs, look back: Are there natural peaks and valleys in your business' annual calendar? How might you most influence or get ahead of any seasonality in your industry with some perfectly-timed incentives?
- See even more actionable tips on spiff planning here from compensation experts at Workiva and Equinix .
4. Forget boiling the ocean. Move the middle
As we heard from many of our experts, you'll always have outlier performers, so instead of trying to aim for absolute perfection, focus your 2025 comp plans on significantly shifting the behaviors of those in the middle of the distribution curve. Elevate this population of sellers to swing your momentum positively. Think: how do I get the most people engaged for the outcome I want?
What we're reading...
When it comes to growth, are you a tortoise or a hare?
Hyper growth is flashy and attention grabbing, but sustainable growth can point to an organization's fitness long term. Balancing growth rate, direction, and approach is no small feat and revenue leaders need to understand the trade-offs involved. Presenting a framework for achieving sustainable growth, this article also identifies areas for leadership to be proactive in unlocking future growth opportunities.
CFO, your friend not foe
Spoiler alert—a good relationship with your finance team boils down to soft-skills and interdepartmental trust. Quoting experiences and advice from interviews with six executives, this piece is full of actionable ways to build and maintain a healthy relationship with your finance team and CFO. It may feel like you have competing agendas if you look no further than the end of your desk, but stepping back, both teams are focused on driving strategic goals.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Here's the kicker...
Is there consensus on comp adjustment cadence? 🤔 (not exactly...)
Sales comp planning, design, and rollout—all can look very different depending on who’s calling the shots.
We got info from 100 top revenue leaders and those running sales compensation strategy, to see where they agree or disagree on various aspects of sales comp, and on the topic of pivots or adjustments to the plan...
Well, there's some differences here.
Here's what we notice:
- A greater percentage of revenue leaders think comp plans should change bi-annually (vs. those responsible for carrying out said changes)
- Revenue leaders are split equally regarding hypothetical changes to compensation monthly or quarterly...whereas only 2% of comp leaders seem to agree monthly is effective (or realistic).
- Interestingly, if compensation leaders had their say, plans might change (largely) annually based on effectiveness data and spend.
Expert tips for balancing territories and quotas
Few things ignite heated conversations faster than unfair territories or unrealistic quotas. 🔥
When implemented incorrectly, you end up with disheartened reps, missed targets, and comp disputes that threaten your entire sales machine.
Check out the best practices Cisco 's Kristina Plane , Unity 's Pauline Xu , and Databricks ' Vincent DaCosta, MBA, CSCP shared with us on battling unbalanced territories or one-size-fits all quotas.
Looking for your next role?
We’ve shortlisted a handful of opportunities that stood out to us and might be of interest to you:
- Director, Revenue Operations - SmithRx
- Principal Sales Comp Design & Strategy, Sales Compensation Strategy - Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Associate Director Sales Operations - Incentive Compensation - Intra-Cellular Therapies
- Sr. Manager, Incentive Compensation - Baxter International Inc.
- Manager, Commissions - Grammarly
- Sr. Manager Sales Compensation - Adobe
- Sales Compensation Senior Manager - Wind River
- Revenue Excellence Lead, Compensation Enablement - Shopify
- Sales Compensation Manager, SMGS Ops - Global Sales Compensation - Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Director of Revenue Operations - Cartwheel
If you know another revenue or sales ops leader who would enjoy these resources, be sure to forward this issue on!
If this newsletter was forwarded to you, you can get your own copy bi-weekly by subscribing here.
Until next time,
Mike Roberts
VP of Marketing at Forma.ai