JEM Consulting Group

Start With the Sales Event – Aligning Sales Responsibility & Compensation With the Sale 

Every CEO and Business Owner knows that acquiring new business and keeping customers are two of the big drivers for improved financial performance and happy investors. For those reasons, untold millions are allocated to Sales Departments, Customer Service Centers, and Customer Satisfaction Measurements.  What is missing many times in these expenditures is a laser like focus and alignment around those two different events; a new sale opportunity and a renewable sale opportunity. Although a buyer and seller are present in both events, the go to market strategy and reward for each sale should be different.  

Unless you are in that rarefied space where your product or service has a cult-like following (Apple iPhone) acquiring and keeping customers is job one for sustainable growth. Unfortunately, when setting up their go to market sale structure and sales incentives some companies look at acquiring new customers and keeping existing customers as one job.  New sales and renewable sales are two distinctly different events. Each event requires different sales talents and each event has a different bottom line impact on the P&Ls. When you have the same sales person responsible for both events and an incentive payout that rewards either type of sale the same, you are not maximizing your sales opportunities or spending your money wisely. Hiring the right sales talent along with training, retaining and compensating that talent has to be aligned with the type of sale (new or renewable) you want them to pursue. Without that alignment, sales people will naturally migrate to the type of sale that best fits their talent and rewards their wallet. That migration will lead to missed sales opportunities in the other sales sector and those misses mean less new business or less renewed business than possible.  

So where do you start? It will take a collaborative effort to make sure your sales talent and sales compensation aligns with both sales events). That effort will require engagement by Sales Management, Sales Recruiters, Sales Trainers, Finance, Human Resources and an Executive Sponsor. It may also include your top sales performers today.  It should also include a 3rd party facilitator and subject matter expert who can bridge the natural silos that may exist between departments while introducing “best in class” strategies, structures and rewards scenarios. The right team focused on the right opportunity with the right Executive mandate can transform your sales resources into the focused teams required to grow your top and bottom line.