Design
In the discovery phase, the objectives for the plan updates were identified, the selling roles documented, and the fact base needed to build the designs was assembled. The Cygnal Group’s compensation plan design begins with development of a pay structure to deliver market-competitive and affordable total compensation, with role-appropriate risk and upside. The payout mechanics for the variable portion of compensation are then designed for each selling role.
No plan design is complete without thorough testing, so modeling scenarios and testing criteria are established as the final step in the design process.
A completed compensation plan design includes:
- A pay structure for the sales organization
- Detailed incentive plans, one for each sales role with
- Measures and weights
- Crediting rules
- Payout tables and detailed mechanics
- Linkages between measures as appropriate
- Modeling scenarios and criteria for design testing.
The result is the initial draft of a fully articulated set of compensation plans that focus sales people on the most important results at the right cost of comp for the business. The plans will be refined and finalized following plan testing.
