If you are in sales no truer words were ever written! If you want to make more money, get a raise or get promoted it all starts with being effective in sales:

• You want to make more more…sell more!
• You want to get a raise…exceed your quota for the year!
• You want a promotion…forecast accurately and consistently exceed sales goals!

If you’re a Sales Leader or a Business Owner please recognize that there are all sorts of ways to compensate your sales team. I am a big believer in “pay for performance.” The more a salesperson sells, the more they exceed their sales goals the more money they should make. Some of the most common sales compensation methods from one extreme to the other include:

• Straight salary
• Non-recoverable draw
• Recoverable draw
• MBO’s + activity-level bonus
• Salary + “spiff”
• Salary + commission
• Salary + bonus
• 100% commission

It is also important to include benefits in the total compensation package. Those benefits could include:

• Health, Dental and/or Vision insurance
• Life insurance
• Auto/Mileage expenses
• Smart phone/Blackberry/iPhone
• Company clothing
• Laptop, iPad or desktop computer and/or printer
• Expense/Entertainment budget
• Flexible work schedule (i.e., work from home, flex hours, etc.)

A couple of closing thoughts on sales compensation:

• Make sure your sales compensation plan is simple.
o If a salesperson can’t calculate how much money they will make on an individual sale your compensation plan is too complicated.
• If your compensation plan does not drive the behavioral and/or deliver the kind of results you want its time to change the plan…not the salesperson!