How to Design an Effective Sales Compensation Plan that Motivates People and Boosts Sales with Jennifer Kerr
Impact Pricing - A podcast by Mark Stiving, Ph.D.
Jennifer Kerr is a results-driven professional with a proven track record of delivering top and bottom-line profitability. She is a strategic thinker with the ability to create a strategy, vision, and execute to promote business growth. With a focus on capturing customer value, she consistently delivered projects on time and on budget. In this episode, Jennifer talks about designing your sales compensation plan and structure to drive behavior and incentivize salespeople appropriately. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Discover how to use sales compensation to motivate salespeople to bring in more revenue for your company Learn how to use KPIs to motivate your sales team to close deals at higher prices by incorporating them into your compensation structure Find out how salespeople can sell value rather than price "Value-based pricing has to meet value-based selling in order to be effective." - Jennifer Kerr Topics Covered: 01:25 - What led to a pricing role for Jennifer 02:24 - How the pricing tool she created impacted the company 04:34 - A general overview of sales compensation 08:26 - Strategic initiative that is a win-win for both the company and the salesperson 08:50 - How to drive better performance from salespeople 13:27 - The importance of sales compensation base salary to incentivize salespeople 17:23 - What you can do when salespeople don't close any deal after taking the necessary steps 18:38 - Framing an incentive plan side-by-side with value-based selling 20:21 - What is selling value all about 21:40 - Why do salespeople not able to articulate value selling naturally? 25:08 - Leveraging behavioral economics and behavioral insights on salespeople 25:27 - Sharing a tip on how she's using behavioral economics 28:46 - Salespeople wanting a path of least resistance and why they do and how not to let them lead with price Key Takeaways: "When you think about more program-based selling, if you're a company or an organization that are on a more mature level, then I think you might want to stop considering widget-based pay, which, in and of itself, could be the lever to pull to get salespeople to sell deals at higher prices and get more margin." - Jennifer Kerr "If you have four or five steps, and you're not aware, then the design might be off. I go back then to, is the plan design right? I mean, plan design harder." - Jennifer Kerr "Sales are hard. And that's where I think as pricers, we can certainly help frame up that value base, that value pitch, and flip it into value-based selling. And I think organizations that really focus on that end up winning more than they end up losing." - Jennifer Kerr "When I say selling value, I think it's how does my product, how does my service impact the P&L of the person I'm selling that to whether it's B2B or how does it impact the household that I'm selling this to. To me, that's value selling because you're not starting with price. And if you start with price, you've already lost in the war of price." - Jennifer Kerr "Price the product based on its value and the value to the customer. And then go value-base sell it. That's transformational for any organization." - Jennifer Kerr Connect with Jennifer Kerr: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-kerr63/ Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/