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Sales Comp Guy

Scaling and Your Sales Force

Christopher Goff • June 22, 2022

What Needs to Change and What Needs to Stay the Same as You Grow

You've probably heard the saying, "What got you here won't get you there." Starting a business is a huge accomplishment, and you and your team should be proud of all you did to get this far. But if you haven't discovered it yet, you will soon: what got you here… won't take you to the next level.

Some things change as you grow. Some don't. But it can be tricky to navigate which systems need to evolve and which need to stay the same. In my experience helping companies develop sales compensation plans, I've found there are a few important areas to focus your attention on when it's time to scale. 

Culture Check

One thing that probably doesn't need to change as you grow—and in fact, could be detrimental if it does—is your company culture. There's a lot of energy around a business start-up. New ideas are flying, and everyone's excited to contribute to building this new, cutting-edge thing. You want growth, that's what it's all about, but when growth arrives, sometimes that by-your-bootstraps rebel grit and enthusiasm dies down. It may just be the right time to check your culture.


Get feedback from your team on their ideas of the company values and mission statement. Perhaps you've never needed to put it on paper. Now's the right time to document it. Codify the mission statement into your company culture and make sure to include it in all job descriptions going forward. Be sure to have all your external-facing employees cognizant of and aligned on these values. They will represent your company's vision and mission to prospective clients.


If you have existing salespeople, they will likely be a mentor to future sales team members, so it's important that they be aligned with company culture and values. Keep that front and center.

Sales Compensation Plan

If you've read my book, you'll know that your sales compensation plan isn't a fixed point but rather an ever-dynamic strategy for motivating, attracting, and retaining sales employees. It should adapt and evolve into something that is useful for your changing circumstances. 


If your current sales structure is buckling under the load of new growth, not only is it possibly time to hire more help, but it's also time to revisit your compensation plan. Has your strategy shifted at all since the original sales plan was put in place? Take a look at your sales objectives. How have they changed over time? And have you communicated that change to your salesperson? Do they understand, and are they aligned on how to achieve your updated financial objectives? 


How about pay? With this growth, are you taking the time to look at your total compensation levels, the mix of pay, and if you are competitive with the labor market levels?


When was the last time you looked at the plan mechanics? How about a review of the administration of the plan, payment timing, the accelerators, or any other aspect of the plan?


These considerations and more should be reviewed at every step of growth or any change in strategy to ensure that the sales team will be aligned to the business needs rather than falling behind or being out of touch with customers, both internal and external.

Adding Structure

Young businesses are often made up of a scrappy band of individuals who have all bought into a shared vision. You're all working hard, taking on the tasks that most fit your skill set and interests, and wearing many hats.


However, that structure (or lack of structure) can only last so long. Scaling brings with it the need to add in the specialization of jobs and layers of management to drive business outcomes. While adding in management may seem unnecessary since you've gotten this far with your staff, resisting this process will likely only spell disaster in the long run.


As you're adding management to your sales department, keep in mind that new leadership will be an extension of you and heighten the ability to execute on the growth expectations. Beyond hiring management, you will also need to add support and administration people, processes, and tools that will accelerate the acquisition of new customers and remove some of the burdens of work currently being carried by the sales team.

Revisit Roles and Assumptions

Evaluate your current relationships with existing customers and keep in mind as you're growing that, they will be growing as well. The way you've communicated with customers in the past may no longer work for them. This is the point in time when you will want to go back to your job descriptions. Do you have the right roles in place to accomplish the next cycle of growth? Have you taken the time to outline the evolution of responsibilities as jobs change? Moreover, have the employees been communicated to about these growing or evolving needs of the business and are genuinely bought into the process of supporting the initiatives.


It may also be time to invest in a CRM system to keep track of all client interactions with your customers. CRMs are helpful for more than collecting client data and tracking deals. This is also your fail-safe for managing business interactions, customer communications, learning about the sales process, and developing performance management and financial productivity. As the business evolves, so too should the assumptions of roles and responsibilities and, ultimately, the jobs that support the business.

Sales Complexity

If you don't have a salesperson on staff yet, or if you do and they are solely responsible for all aspects of customer engagement with both clients and prospects throughout the entire sales cycle, you may find that it's time for a sales process and system. As you're scaling, it can be valuable to evaluate your sales process and see what supports you can put in place so your salesperson can focus on whatever is most important in the next phase of growth.


Roles you might hire for could include lead generation, account management, digital marketing, and many others. Remember to always evaluate your financials, including cash flow and expected revenue from each position invested in, before creating new compensation plans for your future sales roles. 


Scaling up brings many new challenges. These growing pains are good because once you've addressed them successfully, you find yourself a larger, healthier company ready to sustain business at a much higher level. Just keep in mind the people and their efforts and contributions as you grow. Be sure to remain flexible and resilient as the inevitable changes occur continuously.

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Setting objectives is a constant balance between meeting your organizational goals and being realistic about the capabilities of your sales team. You want to be aggressive enough to reach revenue and profitability expectations as well as keep everyone motivated, but you don’t want to be so aggressive that your team feels it is impossible to succeed and just gives up. In part 5 of my Best Practices in Sales Compensation Series, we’ll go over some of the top things to consider for keeping your sales team engaged and successful. (Read Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , and Part 4 ) When setting objectives for your organization, consider what you absolutely need versus the ideal you want; take into account the resources you have to work with (as well as the market situation and sales productivity); and create a target range ranging from easy to impossible—and place your target somewhere in the middle of that range. Types of Objectives There are several different types of objectives you might set for your sales reps. They can be sales process activities like making calls or qualifying leads. They can be progression milestones like hand-off triggers between internal teams or customer signoffs. But for our purposes, we’re going to focus on financial objectives such as revenue and profit. Best Practices for Setting Objectives Objectives need to align with organizational goals and provide achievable but challenging targets for the sales team. To accomplish this, consider these practices: Make sure that the salesperson has the ability to influence if not fully control, their capability to meet and exceed the objectives. Set realistic expectations. Unrealistic targets will stagnate your growth potential and give you a poor reputation with employees (as well as the labor market). Provide a clear and visible path to achieving the objective. Try to limit the quantity and types of objectives. More is not better. It’s better for a sales rep to be able to focus on a singular goal than to have their attention split in too many directions. Lastly, make a plan for what to do if your salesperson exceeds the target as well as underachieve target objective levels. These are just a few of the very important considerations in setting your objectives. Take some time to explore my blog or check out my books for a more in-depth look into sales compensation.
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Best Practices in Sales Compensation Part 4
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In my first Best Practices post, I talked about the importance of knowing what you can pay for your sales roles before worrying about what the market is saying. In my second post, I covered ways to utilize culture in a sales organization . The following Best Practice in sales compensation involves job content. Job content plays several roles in your compensation plan: 1. It gives your salesperson a guide to what success looks like in their role. 2. It gives you a guide to evaluating the performance of your salesperson. 3. It rationalizes differing levels of variable pay outcomes for varying performance levels. 4. It provides your organization with the structure needed to comply with any reporting, pay transparency, or other regulations. Hopefully, that’s enough to convince you of the importance of taking the time to define your new roles and revisit the definition of your existing roles. Now, here’s how job content actually does those things. Defining the job The first role of job content is to define the who, what, where, when, and how of the function. It can be tempting to borrow a job description from LinkedIn, Glassdoor, etc., with the assumption that the content will be similar enough to fit your needs. However, the way a specific role performs is unique to the organization it’s acting in, which is why it’s important to take the time to define the job from scratch. Here are the questions you should be answering in your job content: What does the person need to do on a daily basis? How does this individual pursue sales, and in what segment or with what type of customer? Where should they focus their time and attention when building a pipeline of deals? Who should they be interfacing with, both internally and externally? When do they engage with customers and/or prospects? What portion of the sales process do they own or support? How do they interface with and influence decision-makers? Now, even though I said to write your job description from scratch, that doesn’t mean this is the time or place to get too creative. Job seekers are going to be searching by job title or category, so it’s essential to stick to the common vernacular regarding industry jargon and expected job titles. Job Description: A Byproduct of Job Content Another positive outcome of creating job content for your roles is that you will have generated much of the information needed for a job description if or when you’re ready to hire. Information such as: Job duties and responsibilities that clarify the type of work and engagement with customers. Qualifications/Requirements that are both minimum and desired. Those include education, knowledge, skills, capabilities, and competencies. Performance measures of the role include items like achieving sales targets, new logo acquisition, development of pipeline, accuracy in forecasting, etc. With all of this information on file, it will not only be easier for you to prepare to hire for the roles you want, but it will also be easier to evaluate existing employees in those roles. Beyond all of that, you’ll be well prepared for competitive market research and establishing your variable pay program. I’ll be posting more best practices on the blog, but if you’re anxious to dive deeper into the subject of sales compensation, you can grab a copy of my book Starting Simple: Sales Compensation and consider working through the companion Workbook to build a sales compensation plan from scratch.
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