Incentives Scheme Design Errors Concerning the Sales Roles

Introduction

When a Salesperson reaches or exceeds the sales goals, one of the ways to motivate and reward this action is through the Sales Incentives System. Often, this is set up to encourage salespeople to either reach or exceed the goal of the management. Meanwhile, the purposes of the company are shaped by the current strategy. 

Sales Role in the centre of designing an incentives program

Aside from motivating individual salesperson and an entire sales force in a different way, a sales compensation plan is also intended to incentivize specific job roles. While some of the aspects of the scheme are made to follow one sales role, others are not. For instance, an incentive scheme is for the entire salespeople and not for one salesperson. A sales role is described by the same tasks and responsibilities a salesperson has. For example, a group of salespeople that cover a specific set of products covering all the US markets in the telecommunication industry. 

The sales role includes the task and responsibilities involved in by a salesperson. An example of a sale role is a company that offers coupons or discounts to the customers. In a sales compensation plan, a group of salespeople is handled in the same manner. This process is one of the primary reasons why the sales role makes the sales compensation plan. 

The sales role is one essential factor to examine when designing a motivation plan. Therefore, the sales management and company need to look for the part of the role that is vital and invaluable to the scheme. The sales role begins with the ability to identify the exact client and ends when the client is made to sign and purchase the product offered. 

Often, the ability to convince a client to change the status quo and purchase a particular product is determined by the value that most of the systems award. 

The Sales Role

When designing a motivation scheme, defining the different job roles in a company is one of the first steps. A sales role comprises the responsibilities, activities of the salesperson as well as the goals. Salespeople with the same purposes work in coordination to achieve the objectives. Likewise, they also share equal financial opportunities and risks. 

How to design a sales role

Creating a sales compensation scheme is like putting one’s shoulder to the wheel. This process demands knowledge, skills, and discipline. At the same time, it needs some guidelines and steps. When there is a mistake in designing a sales role, this action often less to error. 

Setting up a sales compensation plan is not easy. In the program, there are errors companies do. These errors relate to some aspects of the scheme. Let’s look at some;

• The inability to identify who is a sales role in an organization is one significant error that is associated with a compensation scheme. This error is a result of the different sales that contribute to the sales success of a business.
• The inability to define what a sales role is in a company is another error that occurs when designing an incentive scheme. It happens when the method in which a person adds value to the objectives of the company is not clear to the salespeople. 
• Other roles contribute to the decision making from the client, but which is not referred to as sales. When the company does not establish these roles, errors often occur in the making of the compensation scheme. 
• When there are constant changes in a sales role and the responsibilities it has before, it usually creates a vague incentive scheme in the mind of the salespeople.
• Another action that contributes to difficulties in designing a compensation plan is the additional responsibilities of a salesperson. The primary role of a salesperson is to sell to make a profit for the company. When a salesperson takes on other duties apart from this, error often occurs in designing an incentive scheme.
• The unavailability of adequate resources and support from an external partnership or internal collaboration when making an incentive scheme brings about the error in the setup. Therefore, maximum comfort and funds must be established before designing a compensation scheme. 

Repercussions of wrongly defined sales role

There is both direct and indirect aftermath that comes with a wrongly defined sales role. Let’s look at some of the immediate and essential consequences; 

• Wrongly defined sales often serve as an apple of discord among the company’s stakeholders. It also creates a confusion state among the incentive design team and the salespeople. Also, not defining the sales role prevents the company from knowing how to incentivize a salesperson. 
• Another consequence of a wrongly defined sales role it makes a company pay salespeople for the wrong reason or duties. This problem occurs when a salesperson is incentives for the wrong task. There is a need for a better understanding of what a salesperson is doing. The company needs to know the responsibilities of a sales manager or a design team member to motivate him. For example, a salesperson should not be given an incentive on what he didn’t do. 
• Not well-defined sales roles, most of the time, leads to missing key targets and goals of the company. This problem occurs when the salespeople are not encouraged about what they should do. It brings about a high turnover in the sales department. 

Solutions to Incentives scheme design errors with sales roles

A company needs to define and establish the roles of each team in the system when designing an incentive scheme. The sales manager to the salesperson must know the responsibilities of the programme and the goals of the plan. For instance, in a compensation plan, the salespeople are not to acquire new clients for the company. The managers are responsible for motivating and compensating the salespeople.

Another way to correct the sales role’s error through the incentives scheme is the identification of the numbers of the team. This action helps to know the number of people involved in the programme. It also helps to understand how each responsibility can be shred to each territory of the team.