Misunderstood Plans

A sales compensation plan drives desired behaviors only when each salesperson has a clear understanding of what they need to do to succeed. Ongoing feedback is needed to help people understand their plan and to reinforce how the plan works.

Lack of plan understanding leads to time spent shadow accounting and airing grievances, and decreases sales force motivation and job satisfaction. It also leads to less than optimal customer targeting, not selling the right products or services, and disputing plan results—all of which negatively impact sales results. Added to this are the spillover effects of the time spent by administrative staff dealing with the inquiries and time spent by sales managers trying to explain how the plan works.

Synygy helps companies achieve high-quality communications so that salespeople better understand their sales compensation plans, how they can earn more money, and what they need to do to improve performance. On top of good information design, improving understanding of plans requires that salespeople receive frequent, timely communication of results so that they have an opportunity to change behaviors that affect their paycheck.  This requires efficient information production and distribution processes.