CRO Rule #7
Reward the strong and effective; don’t subsidize the marginal performers.
Incentives are one of the most under-utilized tools available to the CRO today. Strong salespeople are almost always motivated by a return on investment which speaks to money. Yet, there are certain mistakes I have encountered over my career that I have listed in my book.
Here they are (with more details available in the book):
Incentive Mistake #1:
All business (new and existing accounts) earns the same incentive.
Incentive Mistake #2:
Putting a cap on a salesperson’s earnings.
Incentive Mistake #3:
Not creating an incentive based on desired outcomes.
Incentive Mistake #4:
Not having a defined sales cycle.
Incentive Mistake #5:
Letting Finance design the incentive plan.
Incentive Mistake #6:
Paying incentives on orders versus customer payment.
Incentive Mistake #7:
Assigning more sales leads to the reps that are NOT doing well to help them crack the incentive column.
