Sales Objectives & Remuneration
According to Antoine
Head of Sales
Trusk
What is the role of a sales team manager?
How do you build the remuneration policy for Sales?
How do you make a variable salary attractive?
What advice do you have for the remuneration of salespeople?
What is the role of a sales team manager?
Antoine, Head of Sales at Trusk, is responsible for defining the sales strategy and implementing it with his teams. This sales strategy includes many issues, such as the construction of individual objectives and the remuneration of the sales teams.
How do you build the remuneration policy for Sales?
At Trusk, the remuneration of Sales is common to that of other companies, with a fixed salary and a variable salary. When Trusk established its salary grids, they based themselves on what was more common in the market.
The ideal is to have a fixed base, sufficient to live in the city in question, with of course a variable part that is attractive and motivating for employees to give their best every month. This percentage is defined according to Trusk’s monthly or quarterly objectives, which serve as a basis for evaluating a Salesperson’s performance. Naturally, if an employee exceeds these targets, he or she will be rewarded even more.
At Trusk, for example, if a salesperson meets all his or her targets, he or she can earn a bonus of around €1,000 per month.
How do you make a variable salary attractive?
Variable pay is complicated. You should not hesitate to iterate on this subject. The remuneration model may differ depending on the product offered by the company (subscription or one-shot). Antoine advises involving the sales team in the discussion, while already having a basis on which employees can give their feelings.
Generally, the easiest way is to offer a percentage of the turnover. This implies that the salary is de-capped, in order to motivate the teams even more. A high-performing sales representative can therefore earn an extremely good living. Monitoring performance in real time is the key to the company’s growth.
At Trusk, the average variable salary is around 7.5% of the turnover that the sales person makes. On the market, the variable pay rate is between 6% and 12%.
What advice do you have for the remuneration of salespeople?
Antoine advises first of all to be very transparent about the variable part of the salesperson’s salary. This percentage will be closely linked to the motivation and performance of your teams, so it must be properly defined. Internal competition in sales (in a benevolent way!) is obviously welcome.
But beware, overestimating this variable rate can quickly demotivate the less successful salespeople, and a rate that is too low will not motivate the teams enough. You therefore need to find a happy medium when defining the variable part, while already having a fixed base that allows you to live comfortably.
Antoine reminds us that sales teams should be motivated first and foremost by the values and missions of a company, and not just for the pay!
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