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Plan document
Plan documents move from Best Practice to Legally Required in California
California, a state already ahead of most in regulating calculation and payment of sales commissions, has put into law the requirement to document commission plans in writing effective January 1, 2013.
Hiring your first sales person
For early stage businesses, your first sales hire is hard to do well. You don’t have a sales leader to help you confirm you have the right skills and temperament for the job. You’re not sure what to expect in terms of productivity…
Communicating to Sales Professionals
Sales Compensation Quarterly, November 8, 2009 – Communicating changing sales compensation plans is never easy. The salesforce will always start with the assumption that the new plan is going to take something away from them, and will be skeptical of anything the company tries to push as a “positive change.”
Keys to Success: Six Areas to Address in Your Next Sales Compensation Plan
Workspan, August 27, 2010 — It’s fall again, the economy appears to have shifted toward the positive in many sectors, and companies are thinking about redesigning their sales compensation plans for 2011. In order to ensure the redesign process and resulting plans will provide a good return, businesses should address six key areas.
Looking Ahead: Should We Make a Change?
Sales Compensation Focus, July 2010 – The economy appears to have taken a positive turn and many companies are starting to think about growth: hiring more sales reps, launching a new product, or breaking into a new market segment. One of the first questions that is raised when a company returns to growth mode, especially if there has been significant retrenching, is, “What should we do with our sales compensation plans?”
Incentive Plans Must be Well-Documented to Prevent Costly Confusion
The Logistics Journal, March 2010 – The joke goes that the majority of incentive plans are drawn up by the company president and sales director hastily over cocktails and written on a napkin. While most incentive compensation plans have a bit more thought put into them than this…
Are claw backs legal when the account is past due?
Our small sales team is paid 100% commission on gross margin. Sometimes, we claw back commissions that were paid after the customer is past due and in collections, is this legal?
What type of itemization/documentation is an employer required to provide to sales people paid variable compensation?
There is no requirement to provide documentation in the US in most industries. You are free to provide additional compensation whenever you’d like, based on whatever criteria you establish (or change). However, to maximize the motivational value of your plans…
An account may become past due after commissions are paid. What are the options?
Sometimes customers return products, or they just don’t pay. As a result, some companies do a charge back on commissions paid to the sales person on the sale. The legality of this practice can vary…
What is considered “best practice” with regard to payout eligibility and employment status re: incentives and contests/SPIFFs?
My answer is different for contests and SPIFFs than for core incentive components. For core components, give some thought to what you’re trying to accomplish with your eligibility requirements…