Imagine your sales team, energized and united, laser-focused on a single, decisive goal. Picture workshops buzzing with ideas, speakers igniting passion, and activities that drive home key messages like never before. 

This isn’t just another sales kickoff – it’s an SKO delivered under one unified theme to propel your team toward stratospheric success.

Think of a regular sales kickoff like a bag of mixed nuts: a handful of valuable insights, a sprinkle of motivation, and a lot of…well, mixed results. It might satisfy for a moment, but it won’t leave you feeling truly energized or focused.

On the other hand, sales kickoff themes operate like a gourmet chocolate bar: each element crafted with intention and each bite bursting with flavor and purpose. It’s an immersive experience that resonates deeply, leaving your team with a clear direction and an insatiable hunger to achieve. Just as the chocolate market evolves to cater to diverse tastes, a well-designed sales kickoff theme should adapt to the varied preferences and motivations of your sales team.”

So, how do you transform your next SKO from scattered to stellar? 

Mastering Sales Kickoff Excellence

Learn what it takes to strike success at your sales kickoff — including how to get your sales team hyped for the year ahead (and their new comp plans)

Read Guide

By harnessing the power of unifying sales kickoff themes. 

In this blog, we’ll explore the magic of thematic SKOs, unveil inspiring theme ideas, and show you how to build a sales kickoff agenda that rocks.

Get ready to ditch the mixed nuts and savor the gourmet experience. Your sales team’s future self will thank you.

Why SKOs Matter

Before we jump into sales kickoff themes, let’s discuss the importance of a well-executed SKO.

Your SKO sets the first brushstroke on the canvas of your sales year. 

It’s where you define the colors, set the mood, and hint at the masterpiece waiting to be revealed. A strong, thematic SKO isn’t just about immediate excitement; it’s about planting the seeds for sustained motivation, shared purpose, and laser-sharp focus.

Here’s why that first stroke matters:

• Shared Vision: Imagine your team sharing the same mantra and marching toward the same goal. That’s the power of an SKO. It melts individual anxieties into a united front, propelling everyone forward with collective purpose.
• Sustainable Motivation: A well-crafted SKO isn’t just a sugar rush; it’s a slow-release energy capsule. It equips your team with knowledge, tools, and camaraderie that fuel their fire throughout the year, not just until the next meeting.
• Strategic Alignment: Most importantly, it’s about aligning your team with your organization’s goals. Goals become more than numbers on a screen when you imbue them meaningfully. An SKO helps your team internalize the “why” behind their targets and ties their job roles directly to those. This helps every action feel purposeful and connected to the bigger picture.

But remember, just like any masterpiece, an impactful SKO requires careful planning. 

A generic agenda can compromise your overarching messages, hence the importance of a powerful theme. Choose workshops that resonate, speakers who inspire, and activities that drive home your message like never before.

Why It’s Beneficial to Create Your SKO Around a Theme

Sales kickoff themes represent more than window dressing.

A theme binds your event and transforms it from a scattered gathering to a powerful experience that fuels your team’s drive and direction.

Here’s why a theme takes your SKO to the next level:

Cohesive Narrative: A theme provides a central thread, weaving together speakers, workshops, and activities into a coherent narrative. This story resonates with your team, making them feel invested in the journey, not just passive observers.
Theme examples:

• Overcoming the Mountain of Market Disruption
• Unleashing the Inner Sales Warrior

Engagement and Interest: A well-chosen theme sparks curiosity and excitement. It’s no longer just another “blah blah blah” meeting. Attendees are drawn in, eager to see how the theme unfolds and how it applies to their individual goals. Think gamified activities, interactive sessions, and speakers who embody the theme’s spirit. Engagement becomes effortless, and the learning sticks.

Theme examples:

• Adventure/Quest-Themed:
  • “Expedition to Exceed: Charting the Course to Sales Domination”
    • Engagement: Interactive map displays progress toward goals, gamified activities like “boss battles” for difficult clients, and scavenger hunts for sales tips.
    • Interest: Appeals to the competitive spirit, sense of discovery, and desire for achievement.
• Transformation/Evolution-Themed:
  • “Metamorphosis: From Sales Caterpillar to Revenue Butterfly”
    • Engagement: Workshops on skill development, personalized “transformation plans,” before-and-after photos of team growth.
    • Interest: Captures the desire for personal and professional growth,and emphasizes the power of change and continuous improvement.
• Space/Exploration-Themed:
  • “Galactic Growth: Launching Your Sales Rocket to New Heights”
    • Engagement: VR simulations of sales scenarios, “mission control” rooms for strategy sessions, team building activities focused on collaboration in a high-stakes environment.
    • Interest: Taps into the fascination with space, emphasizes the power of innovation and teamwork, fuels a sense of boundless possibility.
      

Workshop Framework: A theme guides the development of workshops and sessions. It provides a clear focus, ensuring each activity contributes to the overarching message. Think “Conquering Customer Canyons” or “Building Bridges of Trust.” These themes naturally translate into workshop topics like objection handling, building rapport, and mastering advanced sales techniques. 

The theme becomes the roadmap, ensuring every session delivers value and reinforces the core message.

 Enhanced Impact: Lastly, a unified theme amplifies the overall impact of your SKO.

It’s not just about presentations and speeches; it’s about creating a memorable experience long after the event ends. 

Consider energizing activities, branded giveaways, and a consistent visual identity that reinforce the theme. This multi-sensory approach leaves a lasting impression, motivating your team to carry the theme’s spirit into their daily work.

Additional Sales Kickoff Themes and Session Examples 

Theme: Customer Retention

If securing loyal customer relationships is your north star metric for the year ahead, consider building your SKO around the theme: “Retention Revolution: Building Fortresses of Customer Loyalty.” 

Sales kickoff themses like thie one aren’t just catchy phrases; they represent strategic manifestos. It defines your mission and guides every aspect of your event.

Imagine interactive workshops like “Building Lasting Relationships,” where your team dives deep into strategies for fostering emotional connections and exceeding customer expectations. 

Or, “Retaining Your Champions,” where they learn to identify and nurture high-value clients, turning them into brand advocates. 

Featured speakers could be customer success champions from within your own ranks, sharing their stories of loyalty-building magic. Industry experts on retention could offer insights on navigating challenges and building long-lasting partnerships. Or, you could ask one of your long-term customers to share their experience. 

But the engagement doesn’t stop there. 

Role-playing exercises can put your team in customers’ shoes, helping them hone their communication skills and handle feedback gracefully. Awards for top customer retention achievements can spark friendly competition and celebrate successes. 

By weaving this theme into every fiber of your SKO, you’ll ignite a passion for customer loyalty in your team, equipping them with the tools and inspiration to build fortresses of customer relationships that stand the test of time.

Theme: Goal Alignment

If achieving harmonious unity between individual goals and company objectives is your guiding star for the year ahead, your SKO theme could be: “Synergy Symphony: Orchestrating Individual Goals for Collective Triumph.” 

Potential workshops could include: “Aligning Individual Goals with Organizational Objectives,” where your team learns to translate broad company visions into personal action plans. Or, “Creating a Unified Vision,” where they collaborate to craft a shared roadmap for growth, fostering a sense of collective purpose. 

You could invite executives or board members from your team as speakers to paint a vivid picture of the company’s future and how your goals get us there. 

Interactive goal-setting sessions can guide your team through setting SMART goals that align with their strengths and ambitions. At the same time, team-building exercises around common objectives can strengthen their sense of unity and collaboration. 

Every element of your SKO, from the keynote address to the closing activity, should echo the theme of synergy, reminding your team that their efforts are the instruments in a grand orchestra, each note contributing to the harmony of collective triumph. Orchestrate an SKO around this theme to create a powerful symphony of ambition and alignment, ensuring your team marches in lockstep towards achieving their goals and exceeding their potential.

Theme: Upselling and Cross-Selling

If unlocking hidden revenue within your existing customer base is your strategic mantra for the coming year, consider anchoring your SKO around the theme: “Beyond the Buy Button: Orchestrating a Crescendo of Upselling and Cross-Selling.” 

This theme acts as a clarion call to action, urging your team to explore the fertile fields of customer potential beyond the initial sale.

Example SKO workshops might look like “Mastering the Art of Upselling,” where your team delves into the nuances of value proposition, psychological triggers, and objection handling to turn “maybes” into resounding “yeses.” Or “Effective Cross-Selling Techniques,” where they learn to identify complementary offerings, weave compelling narratives of customer benefit and build seamless upselling and cross-selling journeys. 

For speakers, you could have your top-performing upsell/cross-seeling rep share their best practices and strategies or invite industry experts who specialize in perfecting land and expand sales techniques. 

Then, tie in immersive role-playing exercises to put your team in the driver’s seat of real-world upselling scenarios, honing their skills and building confidence. Group discussions on successful cross-selling campaigns can foster collaboration, share best practices, and spark innovative approaches. 

Every element of your SKO, from the keynote address to the interactive sessions, should pulsate with the rhythm of “Beyond the Buy Button,” reminding your team that every customer encounter holds the potential for a revenue crescendo. 

Need more theme ideas? Check out this blog. 

Your SKO Theme Team

We’ve discussed themes and how they can help elevate your SKO. But who should be involved in deciding what theme works best? Crafting a genuinely impactful SKO experience takes the right ensemble.

Below, we look at who to include on your “Theme Team.”

1. Sales Leadership and Enablement: These conductors set the tone and ensure the theme resonates throughout the event. They’ll provide strategic guidance, oversee workshop development, and champion the theme’s message to the entire sales force.

2. Marketing and Event Planning Specialists: Think of them as the stage crew, crafting the visual identity, designing engaging activities, and ensuring a seamless flow from pre-event hype to post-event follow-up. Their expertise in storytelling and logistics will bring the theme to life in every detail.

3. Top Performers and Key Stakeholders: These are your star performers — on stage and behind the scenes. Involve top-performing sales reps in workshop development, panel discussions, and role-playing exercises. Their real-world experience and insights will add invaluable authenticity to the theme.

4. Cross-Functional Collaborators: Remember to include the instrumentalists from other departments too. Invite marketing, customer success, and product development teams to contribute their unique perspectives to workshops and discussions. This cross-pollination will enrich the theme and foster a sense of company-wide ownership.

The key is to choose skilled and enthusiastic individuals about the chosen theme. Their contagious passion will ensure your event resonates long after the final curtain falls.

Bonus Tip: Consider forming a smaller “Theme Champion” sub-team who can act as internal cheerleaders, keeping everyone engaged and on message throughout the planning process.

Conclusion: Sales Kickoff Themes

You should feel prepared now to scheme up a theme aligned to next year’s goals, and with the crew in place to execute it to perfection.

For additional sales kickoff resources, check out QuotaPath’s latest guide, Mastering Sales Kickoff Excellence. This ungated guide shares SKO planning best practices, including budget-friendly activities, sales kickoff agenda recommendations, compensation planning rollout tips, and more. 

Schedule time with our team today to see how QuotaPath can streamline your sales compensation management and payment processes. 

Podcasts have rapidly risen in popularity from 274.8 million listeners worldwide in 2019 to 464.7 million in 2023. With over 5 million podcasts, there’s something for everyone, including sales professionals, with over 10,000 active sales podcasts available.

Whether you’re a first-time sales development representative or a seasoned CRO, staying informed and inspired in the ever-evolving sales world is essential. This is especially true with current economic and market volatility influencing buyer preferences and behaviors. 

Podcasts provide an excellent (and accessible) opportunity to level up your skills and benefit from on-demand, free professional development. In fact, 74% of podcast listeners reported tuning in precisely to learn and grow. 

So, what are the best sales podcasts you should add to your rotation? 

In partnership with Women in Sales, which we’re a proud partner of, we compiled a list of everyone’s favorites. 

Best Sales Podcasts to Add to Your Queue

10. Topline by Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman

Every week on the Topline podcast, Pavilion Founder and CEO Sam Jacobs, QuotaPath Co-Founder and CEO AJ Bruno, and Sales Talent Agency CEO Asad Zaman discuss and debate the trends, news, and developments impacting the B2B SaaS world. Tune in for hot takes, strong opinions, and dry humor.

9. Taking the Lead with Christina Brady

Taking the Lead is a podcast for B2B tech professionals, leaders, and executives who want to learn and be inspired. Spekit SVP of Sales Christina Brady interviews top female icons at the forefront of revenue teams. She highlights their unique stories, journeys, wins, and challenges to help tech professionals understand the industry, trends, and how to navigate the B2B Tech landscape.

8. Sales Pipeline Radio with Matt Heinz

On Sales Pipeline Radio, Heinz Marketing Founder and President Matt Heinz interviews B2B sales and marketing entrepreneurs, experts, and professionals. The show covers topics like incorporating empathy in your sales strategy, using AI to find prospects, and how to use your sales data. 

7. Conversations with Women in Sales with Lori Richardson

Conversations with Women in Sales began as a resource for women in sales. In this podcast, Women Sales Pros Founder Lori Richardson talks with women sales leaders about their careers and practical sales tips. This show launched in 2018 due to the lack of women in sales roles and on panels. Episodes cover topics like how to avoid imposter syndrome, build a sales funnel, and succeed in tech sales.

6. Outbound Squad with Jason Bay

The Outbound Squad podcast delves into topics like sales prospecting, cold calls, outreach sequencing, and discovery calls to help reps land more meetings. Outbound Squad Founder and CEO Jason Bay interviews a sales expert or top rep and ends each episode with an actionable tip.

5. Rep Matters hosted by Zoya Segelbacher and Caroline Jones

The Rep Matters podcast is for sales professionals eager to develop their business acumen and become top performers. In each episode, Gong Sales Enablement Leader Zoya Segelbacher and Business English Instructor Caroline Jones explore salespeople’s real-life experiences, obstacles, and successes. This allows listeners to learn valuable insights into the strategies, mindsets, and skills that drive success in sales.

Guide: Mastering the SKO

Unlock the secrets to a successful Sales Kickoff (SKO) with our comprehensive guide.

Read Guide

4. Ashley & Katrine’s Infinite Revenue Playlist powered by Commsor

On Ashley & Katrine’s Infinite Revenue Playlist, Commsor Head of Sales Katrine Reddin and Parentaly Account Executive Ashley Coghill candidly discuss their experiences working in tech sales. Their goal is to help women navigate challenges in the workplace and develop as revenue professionals.

3. Big Boss Energy Podcast with Kayla Burke

The Big Boss Energy Podcast, hosted by Microsoft Enterprise Sales Specialist Kayla Burke, showcases inspiring success stories. This podcast empowers people to identify tools and strategies to boost career success, mindset, and finances. 

2. 30 Minutes to President’s Club by Nick Cegelski and Armand Farrokh

The podcast 30 Minutes to President’s Club ranks as the #1 sales podcast in the world. It provides sales professionals with actionable tactics to help them achieve their sales goals. During the show, Hosts Nick Cegelski and Armand Farrokh interview top sales performers and leaders or they share their insights and strategies. Nick and Armand designed each episode to help you improve your sales skills and close more deals.

1. Sales Gravy hosted by Jeb Blount

The Sales Gravy podcast features best-selling author, speaker, and Sales Gravy CEO Jeb Blount. Episodes range from 10 minutes to an hour, so you can select the episode that best suits your schedule. Topics covered include sales management techniques, managing customer price increases, and creating an accountability culture.

How to Make the Most of Sales Podcasts

Now that you’ve got a solid list of new content, here are a few tips to optimize your listening experience. 

Like many things, learning from podcasts takes more than simply listening. 

According to historical research by Hermann Ebbinghaus, we only retain about 25% of what we learn and forget up to 70% of new information within 24 hours unless we review the information again.

Fortunately, there are various ways to overcome this without repeatedly listening to the same episodes, such as the following:

1. Take notes

Taking notes while listening helps you focus on what is being said. Note-taking has been found to boost your retention and recall of the information learned. Plus, notes allow you to refer back and review the information for reinforcement while making it easier to implement newly learned sales strategies.

2. Hit pause

Podcasts allow you to pause the recording or replay a segment whenever necessary so you can contemplate complex ideas before moving on to the next idea. This lets you consider how new information applies to your day-to-day work and where it might help.

3. Discuss

Explaining what you learn has been proven to improve learning and information recall. So, discussing a podcast with someone else would likely have the same benefit. Taking this step is a great way to put newly learned skills and techniques into practice, further reinforcing the information.

4. Focus on the most useful information

Although a particular podcast may contain helpful information, it may not all apply to your current situation. So, prioritize the bits that are most useful to you in the present and put them to use. Otherwise, you may be overwhelmed by too many options and not implement any of your newfound insights.

Future Trends in Sales Podcasting

Sales podcasts cover a diverse range of emerging topics to address the evolving needs and challenges in the sales industry. 

Some noteworthy topics include:

These topics reflect the dynamic nature of the sales industry. Podcast hosts often invite experts, thought leaders, and industry practitioners to share their insights and experiences on these emerging themes. Explore recent episodes from relevant sales podcasts for the latest and most specific information.

Listen and Learn

Podcasts provide easy access to a huge array of sales-related topics to help boost your continued professional growth. Ensure you get the most from your listening by taking notes, reviewing them, discussing new concepts, and putting them into practice. Get started with your recommended podcasts; you may find a new favorite to add to your rotation.

About QuotaPath

QuotaPaths’s sales compensation management platform is designed to help revenue leaders automate, streamline, and optimize their sales compensation process. With QuotaPath, build fair and motivating compensation plans, provide plan and earnings visualizations, model and test compensation proposals against previous data, and gain insights into the performance of our compensation strategies. 

Spend less time on administrative tasks and more time focusing on what matters: coaching your team, closing deals, and driving revenue.

Learn more by scheduling time with our team or by signing up for a free trial. 

Account executives (AE) owning the renewal process is common practice in SaaS. 

But not all SaaS companies follow suit.

In this sector, particularly among mid-sized to large companies, account executives often take responsibility for managing and renewing customer subscriptions. This approach allows account executives to maintain a direct relationship with customers, understand their evolving needs, and ensure a seamless renewal process.

Conversely, early-stage companies typically leave renewals to account managers (AM) or customer success managers (CSM). This allows the AEs to focus exclusively on growing the customer base by adding new logos versus retaining existing ones, which can muddy priorities.

Our Compensation Plans Templates library contains 10 example AE compensation plans for the latter. 

So, what about the mid-size to large companies who need comp plans with a renewal component? 

Enter this blog.

AE comp plan renewals

For your AE comp plan with a renewal focus, generally, you’ll create two quotas for the AE.

1st Quota: New Biz

2nd Quota: Net Revenue Retention (NRR)
      or Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) with an upsell component

Then, you will dedicate a specific amount of the AE’s variable to each quota. You’ll base this on how much time you want the AE to spend on each while also considering how much you want to compensate them for doing so. 

For example, if their variable is split 50/50 (50% New Biz and 50% NRR), and it’s easier for the AE to secure renewals and upsells, your rep will most likely spend more time there. However, if you dedicate 10% of their variable toward renewals, that’s likely not enough to motivate your reps to focus on renewals.  

TIP: Carefully lay out the splits and recognize that the splits will vary by company. If your AEs are the only ones responsible for retention and upsells, a 50/50 play may work. Remember that if renewals are easier than new logos, your reps may slip on the new biz under this comp structure.

Other comp structure considerations:

• Some companies will pay the AE on renewals but offer it in addition to their on-target earnings (OTE), offering a nice bump in compensation to the rep.
• Usually, the commission rate on renewals will be less than that of new biz (think: 4% versus 8%)
  • You could also offer single-rate or fixed bonuses for high-risk churns that end up renewing
• We’ve also seen AEs not earning on renewals but still having a renewal quota. Reps earn nothing compensation-wise for renewals but are penalized if they don’t hit a renewal target.
  •  We do not recommend this for obvious reasons.
• You could pay AEs only on upsell, as well, versus renewals and upsells. For instance, if the contract value increases from $100K to $150K, the rep earns commission from just the $50K.
  • Note that this structure sends the message that your org. weighs renewals and churns the same. For that reason, we do not recommend this comp model.
• Lastly, we highly recommend including multi-year accelerators or incentives at the new-biz and renewal levels. This secures predictable retention and lengthens the contract term, which gives your team a longer runway to build and establish value and adoption for your customer. 

Build and test comp plans

Understand what your comp plan proposals’ potential commission earnings and team quota attainment will calculate to with existing deal data.

Learn More

AE Comp Plan Renewal Focus Best Practices

When designing an AE compensation plan with a renewal component, several key considerations are crucial to ensure alignment with business goals and motivation for the sales team:

• Clear Objectives and Metrics: Clearly define the objectives tied to renewals and establish measurable metrics. Whether it’s renewal rates, customer satisfaction scores, or upsell opportunities within renewals, having specific metrics will guide performance expectations.

• Balance with New Sales: Strike the right balance between rewarding new customer acquisition and successful renewals. Motivating AEs to focus on both aspects is essential, fostering a holistic approach to customer lifecycle management.

• Renewal Complexity: Consider the complexity of your product or service renewals. If renewals involve substantial account management efforts, a tiered commission structure can be effective based on the required level of effort.

• Customer Success Collaboration: Encourage collaboration between AEs and Customer Success teams. Incentivize AEs to work closely with Customer Success to ensure a smooth renewal process and promptly address customer concerns.

• Long-Term Value (LTV): Align the renewal component with the customer’s long-term value. Consider factors like upsell potential, cross-selling opportunities, and overall customer lifetime value when determining renewal incentives.

• Retention and Churn Mitigation: If churn mitigation is a significant concern, structure the renewal component to reward AEs for retaining customers. Implement measures to address potential churn factors and provide bonuses for successful retention efforts.

• Timing of Payouts: Define when renewal commissions are paid out. It could be upon contract renewal, staggered throughout the renewal period, or tied to achieving specific milestones during the renewal process.

• Performance Thresholds: Set performance thresholds that AEs must meet to qualify for renewal incentives. This ensures that rewards are earned through sustained effort and success rather than automatic entitlement.

• Communication and Training: Communicate the renewal component of the comp plan to AEs and provide training on effective renewal strategies. Ensure that AEs understand how their efforts contribute to short-term and long-term business objectives.

• Data Accuracy and Reporting: Implement robust systems for accurately tracking and reporting renewal metrics. AEs should have access to real-time data to monitor their progress and understand the impact of their efforts on renewals.

By carefully considering these factors, companies can design AE comp plans with renewal components that motivate sales teams, drive customer retention, and contribute to overall business growth.

About QuotaPath

For additional support designing compensation structures, check out some of our other resources:

• 3 commission pay examples for Account Management & Customer Success
• What to include in your VP of Sales compensation package
• For you to download: AE compensation policy template
• Download an SDR compensation policy template
• Compensation Plan Templates
• Sales Compensation Calculators and Tools

Interested in automating your sales compensation process? Schedule time with our team today to see how QuotaPath can help you run commissions more efficiently and accurately. Or, explore our platform by signing up for a free trial. 

A well-designed and executed sales compensation plan is essential to company success. It is intended to communicate expectations and motivate sales behaviors that drive business goal achievement. If the comp plan is confusing, sales reps won’t understand how they earn commissions and will not effectively prioritize sales activities that drive the desired results.

Every leader we surveyed for our report cited at least one issue during the design process, and 30% identified “maintaining simplicity” as the most challenging setback. Our survey also revealed a pattern of overcomplicated plans.

2024 Compensation Trends Report

Our most recent survey, Solving the Biggest Sales Compensation Challenges, evaluated today’s biggest issues with sales compensation design, management, and execution.

Read Report

Don’t worry; we’re here to help simplify your comp plans and boost their effectiveness.

This blog will review the pitfalls of overcomplicated plans, aligning objectives/metrics with comp plans, streamlining, communicating, reviewing adjustments, Sales and Finance collaboration, and plan feedback.

Understanding the pitfalls of overcomplication

Complex sales compensation plans often lead to setbacks.

Our revenue leaders surveyed said overly complicated plans are harder to execute (18%) and too complicated to understand (17%). They also indicated that “simplifying it” (22%) was the most needed improvement in sales compensation management.

Plus, 19% of participants reported that their comp plan doesn’t motivate reps. So, it’s unsurprising that 60% of reps take 3 to 6 months to understand how they are paid.

The solution? Simplifying sales comp plans.

For example, EverView had 35 comp plans, some of which had as many as 12 components.

When EverView leaders surveyed their sales team, they found that 50% of their reps didn’t understand how they earned commissions. So, under the guidance of the QuotaPath team, they simplified and consolidated them into 8 plans.

This newfound clarity motivated their sellers so much that 70% of the team hit quota, and an additional 20% met 90% of the quota.

It’s amazing how motivating a comp plan can be when your reps understand it.

Clarity in objectives and key metrics

Survey participants identified maintaining plan alignment with business goals as the biggest challenge in sales compensation management. It’s essential to clearly define objectives and identify metrics that align with them so the plan motivates behaviors that drive business goals.

“You have to eliminate any disconnect between the business’s performance and your team’s performance,” said QuotaPath VP of RevOps Ryan Milligan. 

Focusing on metrics aligned with business objectives and creating comp plans based on those metrics helps your business drive profitability, growth, and seller satisfaction.

This is a win-win where reps are rewarded for sales actions while the business achieves its goals.

Streamlining commission structures

Although simplifying tiered commission structures makes them easier to understand, you must ensure they motivate your sales reps. A great way to achieve this is by limiting each plan to three components, like an accelerator, a standard commission rate, and a bonus.

Then, evaluate the balance between simplicity and competitiveness. Make sure that your plan is well aligned with industry and market trends. Otherwise, you could encounter difficulties recruiting and retaining top talent, especially in a competitive hiring market.

EverView illustrates successful streamlining commission models. QuotaPath partnered with them to get their plans down from 35 to 8 and then to 1. As a result, they had their best sales year immediately after simplifying their comp plans, with 70% of the team hitting quota.

Transparent and understandable communication

Clear communication is essential when introducing a new or adjusted sales compensation plan. You don’t want sales reps to experience an unpleasant surprise when their commission check differs from what they expected after pushing for that big deal based on the previous plan.

Failure to share plan changes with sellers before launching a new commission plan leaves reps feeling blindsided, disappointed, and suspicious. This can even cause some reps to quit over miscommunication of comp plans.

That’s why you must create a compensation communication plan when designing a new commission plan. This is where you plan to clearly explain the plan, what has changed, and why, and answer questions about the plan. Then, confirm that everyone understands how they earn commissions by completing a plan verification process. This step creates alignment and transparency across the comp planning process.

Tips for effective communication to avoid misunderstandings include:

• Use consistent messaging each time you share the plan to avoid confusion.
• Employ various methods to communicate the new plan because everyone learns differently.
• Start broad and become more detailed each time the plan is shared and in increasingly smaller audiences, such as the entire sales team vs individually 1:1.
• Create a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) document.
• Include calculation examples based on various scenarios within the plan documents.
• Explain why the plan is changing.
• Share the benefits of the new plan.
• Plan documents should be sufficiently long to provide details without being overly lengthy.
• Avoid using legalese and technical or confusing jargon in the plan document.
• Clearly define how performance ties to incentives.

Regular reviews and adjustments

Your work doesn’t end there once you have a simple, logical, and fair compensation plan.

As the market changes, your business goals also change, calling for your team to revisit and adjust your compensation plans accordingly. This way, your plans continue to motivate your reps and drive business goals. Otherwise, you could fall behind quickly and incentivize behaviors misaligned to the changing goals.

What should you look for when you assess your comp plan’s success?

Here are some best practices for continuous improvement and adaptability:

• Make sure your compensation plans are aligned with your most important business metrics.
• Check to see if you’re on target to hit the current quarter’s targets and what percentage of your team has or is on pace to finish the quarter at goal.
• Look at the difference between earnings and attainment of your lowest-performing rep and your highest.
• Make sure you aren’t paying commissions when your team isn’t hitting targets.
• Gather rep feedback to see how they feel about the current plan.

How Sales and Finance can work better together this comp plan season

Learn what preemptive steps you can take before inviting Finance into your compensation plan discussions and how to have productive and aligned conversations.

Read Blog

Collaboration between sales and finance teams

Sales and Finance should work together throughout the sales comp design and implementation process to ensure rep confidence in the program. Collaborating early and often aligns Sales and Finance to ensure plan simplicity and accuracy, increasing its effectiveness.

For example, our VP of Finance, Ryan Macia, and Senior Financial Analyst Jonathan Mann are excellent examples of how Finance and Sales can partner throughout the sales compensation design and implementation process.

Ryan and Jonathan both suggest that Sales engage with Finance after creating a plan proposal.

“I prefer when Sales comes to us with options and pre-proposals,” Ryan said. “I don’t like starting from scratch. If you can come to me with some concepts that will motivate the team, we can determine if it will break the bottom line.”

Employee feedback and involvement

Another way that Sales and Finance work collaboratively on the comp plan design is for Sales to gather feedback from quota-carrying team members. Soliciting feedback from sales representatives during the process helps you understand what actually motivates them, what they’ve liked in previous plans, and what they would’ve changed.

Involving sales teams in the process by requesting their input enhances plan acceptance when it is implemented. This also builds a culture of openness and responsiveness to feedback that creates trust.

Achieve sales compensation plan simplicity

The most challenging issue leaders have when creating comp plans is maintaining simplicity. You can employ several key strategies to resist overcomplicating sales compensation plans.

Doing things like getting clear on your business objectives and metrics, simplifying tiered commission structures, and communicating the new plan are a good start.

Then, remember to conduct regular reviews to assess plan performance, encourage Sales and Finance collaboration during the design and implementation process, and gather feedback from quota-carrying reps.

Taking these steps helps you achieve sales compensation plan simplicity and clarity and drives sales team success. It might also be worth exploring automating the process to deliver visibility and insights into your compensation plans’ performance and test and measure plan changes — schedule time with our team to learn more.

As we approach the end of another year, it’s time to reflect on the incredible journey we’ve shared at QuotaPath. 

2023 presented a unique challenge for many tech companies, including us, as we navigated market volatility. Despite the economic environment’s uncertainties, our commitment to empowering revenue leaders to optimize their sales compensation processes remained unwavering.

In fact, we doubled down on our technology and services to make QuotaPath users’ experiences more efficient and impactful by releasing nearly 50 new features and product updates — many of which came directly from listening to our customers and turning feedback into innovation. 

These include enhancements to our free trial, streamlined setups in QuotaPath, tools to draft and test compensation plan proposals, and role-specific holistic dashboards to prioritize task management and deliver more transparency into compensation. 

We’ve listened closely to your feedback and prioritized developments that address your most pressing needs.

“QuotaPath continues to listen to customer feedback on ways to evolve the payout process in the platform by updating workflows and improving the reports available for my teams,” said a Director of Finance who uses QuotaPath.

Here’s a glimpse into the key areas we focused our efforts:

Accelerated Onboarding and Time to Value

• Free Trial enhancements
• Sample compensation plans and data (sandbox)
• Streamlined set up

First, we focused on getting started in QuotaPath more quickly.

Chances are that if you’re evaluating QuotaPath, you’ve already experienced snafus with your sales compensation management process. 

To help realize the value of automation faster,  this year, we launched enhancements to our Free Trial, filled new QuotaPath workspaces with sample plans and data, and streamlined plan setup. 

The latter took getting started in QuotaPath down to just 3 steps that follow an intuitive, guided process. So, the first time you log in, you’re greeted with a setup dashboard that takes you through building a comp plan, syncing deal data, and onboarding team members. 

Enhancements to Comp Plan Builder 

• Advanced Path Dependencies
• Fractional Attainment
• Auto Commission Rates
• Draft Plans
• Plan Details

Next, we invested in our Plan Builder tool to accommodate deeper comp plan complexities.

These adjustments included advanced path dependencies, fractional attainment (think: an SDR that is paid based on demos set), auto commission rates, draft plans, and plan details. 

Each of these has led to huge improvements in building out comp plans in our system.

For instance, auto commission rates calculates commission rates on the backend (and shows you how the rate was calculated). This allows you to skip building complex formulas the next time your comp plan calls for variable pay splits, multipliers, and more. 

“The automatic commission rate feature at the rep level will support an expedited process around plan configuration, increase visibility, and minimize opportunities for errors. I’m excited that QuotaPath continues to enable our team at Muck Rack to execute with enhanced precision and transparency!”, said Claire King, RevOps Associate Director at Muck Rack.

And we recently introduced Draft Plans so those responsible for proposing comp plan changes can test their structures against previous sales data to see how they would perform. 

This feature came at the request of several of our customers, who were thrilled to see it live.

“So excited to use this for building next year’s plans ahead of time. Kudos to your team for getting this out there before then,” wrote one customer. 

Lastly, we made editing and monitoring the ongoing performance of comp plans in a new Plan Details view easier. This dashboard pulls earning paths within each compensation structure, the deal data used to calculate commissions, and lists the reps who follow that plan. A performance section within this view also shows how your team is progressing to plan and displays total earnings, average effective rate, and plan attainment by rep.

Streamlined Commission and Data Management

• Home for Admins & Reps (including a mobile view for Reps)
• Mobile view for Reps
• Deal Search and Deal Details
• Member Details
• Visual Design Updates
• Streamlined Payouts Workflow

The new Plan Details view skims only the surface of our efforts to streamline commission and data management. Throughout 2023, we also rolled out visualizations, design updates, and workflows tailored to the various roles of our users. 

For example, Home for Admins and Home for Reps surface compensation notifications, such as lingering deal approvals, flagged deals that need resolving, or comp plans awaiting rep signatures. 

Admins see total earnings across their teams, payouts and effective rates, and trends according to quota frequencies.

“This view brings forward the right data that I need to complete the commission process faster and close the loop on discrepancies,” said a customer.

Meanwhile, reps gain an overview of their earnings per month or quarter and plan payment breakdowns and payouts, fostering seller accountability, understanding, and ownership of their sales compensation. 

Then, we cut the time to process commissions in QuotaPath in half by organizing deal and payout information by rep. Called Streamlined Payouts Workflow, this enhancement enables those who run commissions to approve earnings and schedule payouts from a universal view in a guided process.  

“Streamlined Payouts is huge for me,” said one of our customers, who is an accountant for a SaaS company.

New integrations with leading CRM and Payments/Accounting platforms

• Self-service integrations syncs (including Pipedrive, Copper, Quickbooks, GoogleSheets, and Stripe)
• Okta
• Microsoft SSO

Last but not least, 2023 marked a watershed moment for QuotaPath, as we empowered revenue teams with unprecedented autonomy and efficiency by launching self-service integrations within our platform. 

Now, you can seamlessly bridge the gap between your existing tech stack (Pipedrive, Copper, Quickbooks, GoogleSheets, and Stripe) and QuotaPath with just a few clicks. 

Plus, to simplify login processes and enhance user security, we enabled customers to login to QuotaPath using their Single Sign-On accounts with Okta and Microsoft Azure SSO. 

About QuotaPath

These advancements are a testament to our unwavering dedication to providing you with the best possible tools to manage your sales compensation effectively. 

We’re confident that these new features will empower you to:

• Get started in QuotaPath quickly and easily.
• Design and test compensation plans with greater accuracy and confidence.
• Manage commission payouts and deal data more efficiently.
• Integrate QuotaPath seamlessly into your existing technology ecosystem.

As we move forward, we remain committed to listening to your feedback and evolving our platform to meet your ever-changing needs. We’re excited to continue bringing innovative features to the market. Speaking of which, we have two exciting additions coming in January involving customized reporting that will provide valuable insights into commissions for our customers.

Thank you for being a part of the QuotaPath community! Want to be a part of it? Schedule time with our team to learn more about how QuotaPath can help you 

Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 to mitigate fraudulent financial reporting, requiring public companies to run audits with an independent auditor every year.

But what about startups? Are they required to hold audits?

While not mandated by law, a few situations may call for it. It’s a pretty standard procedure between startups and investors, and a good one at that. 

Take, for instance, QuotaPath — one of our lead investors calls for an annual audit as part of our funding agreement. 

Potential investors and creditors alike may require an audit to ensure the company’s financial statements are reasonably accurate and reliable. They can also identify risks or problems and verify that the company uses its funds responsibly and ethically. The goal of any public or private audit is to assess the risk of material misstatement in a company’s financials.

Audit more efficiently with QuotaPath

Expedite your audit processes and keep ASC 606 and 340-60 compliant. Approve sales deals, schedule payments, create audit-ready reports, and amortize commissions in one workspace to ensure a smooth and aligned month-end process.

Learn more

Another instance when startups subject themselves to an audit occurs when a business wants to sell. If so, potential buyers may request it to check if they’re getting a fair price. 

So, while not required by law, it is in a startup’s best interest to be audit-ready if an investor requires it down the road or a sale is on the horizon. Plus, it’s a good business practice. 

Why startups should embrace audits

Beyond an investor’s request, additional benefits come from completing an audit.  

First, an audit can help you identify potential problems with your business. This includes accounting errors, financial mismanagement, and compliance issues. By identifying these problems early on, you can address them before they become more significant.

Second, your findings and recommendations from the auditor can improve your business operations. They can help you identify areas with room for improvement, like process inefficiencies, potential risks, and vulnerabilities, and offer solutions to address each.

And third, an audit can build trust with investors and partners. If you want to raise money or partner with other businesses, an audit can show that your business is well-run and you are serious about your business.

But one does not simply run an audit. Gathering documents and addressing auditor questions takes tremendous time, organization, and preparation. 

Tips for Your Startup Audit

Sound daunting? It doesn’t have to be.

While not many people get excited about “auditing season,” they are a necessary part of running a successful business. They can act as a valuable tool for identifying and addressing potential problems.

To help prepare for audit season, whether your first or your 10th, follow these best practices and tips from QuotaPath’s Finance team, our VP of Finance Ryan Macia, and Finance Manager Jonathan Mann. 

5. Be preemptive.

Anticipate where the auditors’ questions will come from and shore up as much as you can leading up to it. You’ll have adjustments to make, but by getting ahead of them, you can minimize the adjustments the auditor will request. 

4. Prioritize what to focus time on.

Audits require a considerable time commitment from your Finance team. And that’s in addition to their day-to-day responsibilities serving the company. 

To help with time management, choose what you want to focus more heavily on.

You want to make sure to complete all of the documentation. But if you identify areas to hold off on until the auditor’s recommendations, you can save time and direct your attention to more time-consuming but straightforward tasks.

3. Be collaborative with your auditing team (not adversarial)

“Think of your relationship with your auditor as a partnership,” Ryan said.

It’s not a you vs. them. 

When you work in lockstep with them, they can help you identify and correct errors, improve internal controls, and keep you compliant with laws and regulations while providing assurance. 

2. Ongoing financial hygiene 

Ryan and Jonathan also offered some advice on how to stay abreast of audit tasks outside of auditing season.

“Make the audit requirements part of your month’s end process,” said Ryan.

1. Score yourself

Lastly, Jonathan suggested popping open financial statements and scoring yourself line by line.

“Ask yourself, ‘How comfortable am I with this getting audited?’” Jonathan said. 

Check for adequate supporting documentation and ensure any assumptions are clear and grounded. If it’s not, get that documentation. 

How QuotaPath can help with auditing of commissions 

We appreciate Ryan and Jonathan sharing their advice and experience regarding startup audits. 

Now, when it comes to sales commissions, QuotaPath can help prepare commissions for auditing.

Our commission tracking software provides a centralized platform for tracking, managing, and amortizing commission payments.

Let QuotaPath house your commission data so that when you need to run a report that shows commissions, payouts, and clawbacks, you can quickly populate one over any period. 

Plus, use granular audit trails to reconcile payouts with accruals and minimize the need for true-up entries. Close the books faster, define eligibility rules for when commissions payout, and feed your financial model from live forecasts in QuotaPath. 

Talk to one of our reps today to learn more, or sign up for a 30-day trial and see for yourself. 

It’s that time of year: compensation plan design season.

Many companies are finalizing the compensation proposals throughout November and December to prepare them for sales kickoffs during the first quarter.

The sales compensation plan is one of the most essential tools in a sales team’s arsenal. It can be a powerful way to motivate and reward salespeople and align their goals with the company’s overall business objectives. Who builds the sales comp plan will vary according to the size and stage of the company.

For instance, at smaller companies without a RevOps team, it often falls to the sales leader (who may or may not have built a comp plan before) and only the sales leader. At organizations with RevOps, the responsibility shifts to them.

But it shouldn’t be put on one department’s shoulders.

Rather, the comp plan should include input from Finance, Sales, maybe even the board, and support from HR.

Involving multiple departments with different perspectives in your plan design increases rep trust in the comp plan.

This blog explores who to include in your comp plan design committee and at what stage during the building process to involve them.

Let’s get started.

Who to include in your comp plan design committee:

Our 2023 Sales Compensation Trends survey revealed that sales leadership often owns the plan design process at early-stage companies, where RevOps teams take over this responsibility as companies scale. However, it’s essential that the plan isn’t designed in a silo.

The best comp plans result from collaboration across multiple teams like Sales, Finance, HR, and Marketing.

Below, we discuss what each stakeholder contributes to the process.

Sales leadership

Sales leadership is essential to any comp plan design committee. They have the most profound understanding of the sales team’s goals and challenges and provide valuable insights into structuring the comp plan to achieve those goals.

Their knowledge and insights enable them to emphasize what’s best for reps, making comp plans designed by sales leadership the most trusted.

Sales leaders can also facilitate getting feedback from sales reps to understand better what motivates them and what they’ve liked and disliked about previous compensation structures. This input is essential as you build the new comp plan.

Finance

Finance is another vital member of this design committee.

They can provide insights into the company’s financial goals and constraints and help ensure the comp plan is aligned with those goals.

Finance will typically be the department that “approves” the plan, but our recent report indicated a disconnect exists between how leaders view the success and alignment of their plans. For instance, Finance felt more confident than RevOps and Sales leaders that their plans align with business goals and that they motivate sales reps. That’s likely because of their role by coming in at the end of the design process.

By bringing them into conversations early, you can help ensure confidence in the plan’s performance is universal across the organization.

Have a pre-design meeting with finance to share your thoughts. Then, they can give you a pulse check to determine if you’re on the right track. From there, you can build your sales compensation strategy.

Build and test comp plans with Draft Plans

With QuotaPath’s Draft Plans tool, run plan proposals against existing CRM data to estimate total teamwide commissions, identify potential edge cases, get a pulse on plan effective rates, and see how realistic (or unrealistic) attainment goals are.

Read More

Revenue operations (RevOps)

RevOps teams are responsible for designing and implementing sales processes and technologies. They know the data, sales behaviors, motivators, and business context. This enables RevOps to provide valuable insights into structuring the comp plan to support the sales team’s processes.

However, we found that RevOps-led comp plans are the second most trusted, indicating that RevOps has some work to do in that area. One way to accomplish this is through increased sales team engagement. Our Senior Director of RevOps, Ryan Milligan, handles this by hosting monthly one-on-ones with every member of the sales organization to check in and gather feedback.

Board of Directors and C-Suite

Consider including your board of directors and C-Suite in the comp plan design process. They can guide the company’s overall business goals and objectives and help ensure the comp plan is aligned.

Ask them to prioritize three to five strategic company initiatives. Then determine if the sales compensation plan can reinforce any of those priorities.

Human resources (HR)

Less commonly talked about is HR’s role in comp plan design.

HR can provide support on the legal and regulatory aspects regarding sales compensation. They can also help to ensure that the comp plan is fair and equitable for all employees by providing industry rates on OTEs and salary structures.

This ensures that comp plans are competitive and helps prevent discord on the design team regarding how much other companies pay their reps.

Marketing

Marketing should support compensation plan design if the SDR/BDR team falls under their jurisdiction and if any or all of the marketing team have variable pay as part of their compensation package.

Also, marketing plays a massive role in building the financial model for the next year by generating inbound leads and pipelines, which is necessary to set quotas and OTEs for reps.

When to include each stakeholder in the comp plan design process

Each participant plays an important role in the comp plan design. Below, we look at when these various stakeholders engage in the process.

Early stages

Involve sales leadership and finance early on. They can define the comp plan’s goals and objectives and develop a high-level structure. Together, these stakeholders can also do some preliminary pressure testing to ensure that your proposed plan won’t break the budget.

Later stages

RevOps, the board of directors, and HR should join the later stages of the comp plan design process. They can provide feedback on the plan’s structure and ensure that it is aligned with the company’s overall business goals and objectives so it will drive desired outcomes.

Build your sales comp plan

The sales compensation plan is essential to motivate and reward sales reps while driving business objective achievement.

Although Sales Leadership or RevOps typically drives the sales compensation design process, it’s critical to build them outside of a silo. Collaborate with various departments throughout the process and remember to consider sales rep input. The resulting plan will be more effective and trusted by the sales team.

Still need more support on industry sales compensation best practices? Schedule a chat with the QuotaPath team or run sales compensation more efficiently with a free trial.

Will your next sales kickoff (SKO) be one of the 25% that earns an “A” grade?

According to data from TaskDrive, a research analytics firm for B2B and marketing teams, nearly 75% of sales kickoff attendees claim their company’s SKO fails to meet “A”-level standards. 

Here’s why you should care: Your SKO sets the tone and direction for the entire sales team throughout the year.

A well-planned and impactful SKO fosters a sense of alignment, motivation, and collaboration among team members. It provides a platform for sharing knowledge, learning from top performers, and aligning individual goals with the company’s strategic objectives.

It offers a time to reset, re-inspire, and re-engage your team after one of the most challenging years growth teams have seen. 

Plus, employees who feel their SKOs are well executed are more likely to experience increased motivation, job satisfaction, and a sense of belonging, leading to improved performance, customer satisfaction, and long-term business growth. In essence, a successful SKO becomes a catalyst for enhancing the overall success and cohesion of the sales team.

To help with your upcoming SKO, we created our latest guide, “Mastering the Art of the Sales Kickoff.”

Delve into the intricacies of planning, executing, and maximizing the impact of your SKO event. Get ideas for budget-friendly sessions, speakers, and follow-up activities to ensure your team meets and exceeds its goals in the coming year. 

Whether you’re a seasoned leader or diving into SKO planning for the first time, this guide will equip you with the strategies and best practices to have your employees sing your praise. 

Read below to learn more about the book and upcoming QuotaPath events supporting SKOs. 

Master Sales Kickoff Excellence

Unlock the secrets to a successful Sales Kickoff (SKO) with our comprehensive guide.

Read Guide

Inside Our Guide, You’ll Discover:

• The Impact of a Well-Executed SKO:
  • Understand why an SKO is not just another corporate meeting but a pivotal moment to set the tone for the year.
  • Learn why early planning is crucial and how to align your SKO with the company’s goals.

• Purpose of an SKO:
  • Explore how a well-executed SKO can align team goals, boost motivation, and contribute to overall success.
  • Discover the impact of a successful SKO on team performance, collaboration, and morale.

• What Every Successful SKO Includes:
  • Uncover the essential elements of a well-planned agenda, from speakers and learning sessions to compensation plan rollouts.
  • Learn the importance of an award and recognition ceremony and how end-of-day team events contribute to team building.

• SKO Best Practices:
  • Get actionable tips on early planning, cost control, aligning SKO objectives with company strategy, and creating audience-centric content.
  • Understand the importance of varied content formats, team building, technology usage, and feedback mechanisms.

• Compensation Discussion:
  • Recognize the imperative of transparent communication about compensation changes.
  • Gain insights into conducting dedicated sessions at the SKO to align your team with organizational goals and compensation structures.

• Recap, Action Items, and Follow-Up:
  • Ensure your team leaves the SKO understanding expectations and key takeaways.
  • Learn how consistent follow-up, support, and accountability contribute to the long-term success of an SKO.

• Stay Agile:
  • Embrace flexibility and adaptability to overcome unexpected challenges during the SKO.
  • Get tips on proactive planning, contingency measures, and maintaining a calm demeanor in the face of unforeseen circumstances.

Celebrate Your SKO with Us

To continue on that 2024 SKO energy, we’re hosting virtual and in-person events throughout January and February in cities near you. 

Up first is our Jan. 11 webinar, The SKO Playbook for Revenue Growth: Aligning Your Team for 2024, featuring our CMO Sara Strope, CEO and Co-Founder AJ Bruno, and special guests Salesloft CRO Steve Goldberg, and Seismic President and CRO Hayden Stafford. 

Register here for the webinar 

Then, we’ll host six in-person bowling events in Austin, Chicago, Boston, New York City, Washington D.C., and San Francisco. 

Register here, and we look forward to celebrating with you in person.

• SKO Celebration Happy Hours
  • Jan 16: Austin
  • Jan 18: Chicago
  • Jan 23: Boston
  • Jan 25: New York City
  • Jan 30: Washington D.C.
  • Feb 2: San Francisco

We’ll see you there!

About QuotaPath

QuotaPath is your trusted partner in streamlining and optimizing sales compensation. Whether rolling out new compensation plans at your SKO or enhancing ongoing commission management processes, QuotaPath empowers your sales teams, simplifies complexities, and ensures accuracy and transparency in commission payouts.

Schedule time with our team to learn more, or sign up for a free trial. 

Master the SKO with QuotaPath and drive sales excellence for maximum revenue growth.

Ready to scale your business but don’t have the cash to pay a full-time sales rep? A freelance sales rep may fit the bill. 

A freelance sales rep is a 1099 employee and a form of outsourcing to use an independent contractor to sell your product or service. 

If you’re just hearing about it, you’re not alone. However, this model has existed for a while.

In fact, this topic came up in a recent episode of Pavilion’s Topline podcast. 

Sam Jacobs reported, “We’ve been experimenting with sales outsourcing and have had great success with it at Pavilion.”

Asad Azman, Sam’s Co-Host and CEO of Sales Talent Agency, also shared, “Force Management’s entire sales team consisted of former CROs making $500-600K. Consequently, Force Management grew substantially because they had the best people talking to their customers.”

As you can see, outsourcing sales can be effective.

Still, we had questions. What types or stages of companies is a freelance sales team most suitable for, and who makes the best reps?

For help, we connected with SalesStar USA Founding Partner and Practice Leader Frank Niekamp. Frank oversees a group of clients for hire as 1099 sales associates and has firsthand experience hiring contract, or what he calls “Uber,” sales reps.

According to Frank, although hiring for freelance reps has slowed overall, there are still growing companies and startups that don’t have the capital to hire a full-time sales rep. And if that’s the case, this might be the solution they seek.

Below, we’ll look at the pros and cons of this model, when to hire freelance sales reps, and how to hire and pay them.

Let’s get started.

Pros and cons of this model

There are many benefits to hiring freelance sales reps and a few drawbacks.

The positives of using 1099 salespeople include:

• Sales expense becomes a variable expense: Freelance sales reps are 1099 employees who are most frequently only paid when they sell something, directly tying sales expense to revenue — although some may work for an hourly rate. This eliminates the return on investment (ROI) lag experienced when employing a full-time sales rep.
• New salesperson ROI is immediate: Contract salespeople aren’t an expense, whereas a full-time employee in sales is an expense until they become fully ramped. When a new full-time salesperson is hired, business owners are looking for an ROI within 9-12 months, but it may take up to a year and a half to cover their overhead.
• Improves cash flow: Outsourced sales reps are only paid when they generate revenue, simplifying cash flow.
• Staffing flexibility: Using freelance salespeople gives you flexibility as you scale your business, navigate seasonal requirements, or expand into new markets.
• Existing relationships: 1099 sales reps often sell for multiple non-competing businesses that appeal to their existing network of prospects. This offers the potential to sell to the contractor’s existing sales contacts.
• Less training: Freelance salespeople have a depth of prior selling experience, requiring minimal training.
• Shorter ramp-up time: 1099 sales reps are often semi-retired individuals and professionals with years of experience.
• Longer potential tenure: Unlike traditional sales reps, who may only stay in a role for up to two years, freelance reps are often available longer since they aren’t looking to advance their careers.

Now, let’s look at the negatives:

• Less dedication: Contract sales reps often sell for more than one business, so they aren’t investing as much time promoting your product as a full-time employee.
• Reduced output: Time investment and results will vary by rep for the same reason as their level of dedication.
• Retention varies: Although you may be able to retain freelance sales reps longer, it depends on how well they sell your product, their specific situation, and the length of your sales cycle. If they sell your product well, they will likely be easy to retain. But if they don’t have sufficient savings and your sales cycle is longer than 90 days, you may experience a high turnover rate since they likely need steady pay.

When to hire a freelance sales rep

So, when should businesses consider hiring a contract salesperson?

Frank said, “I see 1099 reps as a better fit for a small business looking to scale. They don’t have the cash reserve to hire a full-time employee and are still working through some proof of concept. As a result, they don’t want the funding to run out before they find a concept that actually works.” 

He added that companies with shorter sales cycles work best for this model.

How to pay a freelance sales rep

If you decide to hire contract salespeople, they are typically paid a straight commission. 

“This will vary, but generally, you eat what you kill,” Frank said. 

Some of the commission-based structures that Frank has seen offered to 1099 sales reps include:

• Compensation for activities completed within the sales process, such as booking meetings, creating opportunities, or creating proposals.
• Commissions are paid if an opportunity converts to a closed deal. Commission percentage rates will vary by industry and margin levels of product. In SaaS, for instance, gross margins are double what a manufactured product would ever be able to capture. For example, manufacturing has margins in the high 30s and 40s, whereas SaaS margin rates are typically double that.

“The common thread is that compensation is generally higher for 1099 contracted employees and at least 1.5x to 2x the commission rates of a full-time employee,” said Frank.

Additionally, consider the following challenges when compensating freelance sales reps.

 “It’s not difficult to hire a 1099 salesperson. That’s the easy part,” said Frank. “Plenty of people are willing to work more independently with less predictable income in the first 90 days.” 

The sales cycle is where this becomes challenging. 

“If your sales cycle is so long that you can’t compensate your 1099 rep within 90 days, you won’t be able to retain them,” Frank said. 

To overcome this, Frank suggested rewarding behaviors like booking meetings or achieving a milestone you want to capture versus paying out on closed/won deals. 

How to hire a freelance sales rep

Ready to hire a sales freelancer? Follow these best practices.

First, before you hire a 1099 sales rep, determine what you want to achieve.

Then, based on your goals for your engagement with the freelance sales rep, you need to identify the key traits of an ideal candidate. For example, you might consider:

• A seasoned sales rep with experience selling products or services similar to yours with an established network of prospects they can contact
• Somebody with an established track record of success in yours or a similar industry
• Excellent communication skills
• Agreed-upon rates upfront

From there, decide where you will look for your freelance sales rep.

There are various places to look for the right professional to fulfill your requirements. Where you look will depend partly on the product or service you want to sell and your goals.

A few examples of where to find freelance sales reps include:

SalesStar, where you can work with Frank and his team to find the best rep to meet your needs and how to set up the best possible model.

Other options include agencies like Patrice and Associates or sales outsourcing companies like TheSalesConnection.com, Exceeders, or CommissionCrowd. Plus, there are job boards such as LinkedIn and Upwork where you can advertise your requirements.

Should you hire a freelance sales rep?

Freelance sales reps are a great way to scale your business or meet short-term selling requirements.

If your sales cycle isn’t too long, there are more benefits than drawbacks. And for a small, growing business, contract salespeople are paid straight commission is undoubtedly a huge plus.

Consider your goals before hiring a 1099 salesperson, and create a list of essential attributes to simplify your search. These steps will help you find the best rep to fulfill your selling needs.

Lastly, if you contract a sales team, use QuotaPath to run sales compensation management more effectively. 

Start a free trial or schedule time with our team for help figuring out your sales models and compensation structures. 

Revenue Operations (RevOps) as a role has grown in popularity. In fact, by the end of 2022, 48% of companies had adopted this role, marking an increase of 15% year-over-year, according to Revenue.io’s RevOps Report.

By integrating sales, marketing, and service to adopt the RevOps model, these businesses reap the benefits of increased efficiency, revenue predictability, elasticity, and resiliency. 

RevOps is a win-win for organizations, and many are starting to realize that. For instance, Gartner expects 75% of the highest-growth companies in the world to deploy the RevOps model by 2025.

This trend is causing B2B sales organizations to transition to a data-driven decision-making process using technology that unites workflow, data, and analytics. In fact, Gartner estimates that 65% of businesses will invest in RevOps technology by 2026. 

As a result, the options for RevOps-purposed technology have increased, creating a lot of noise for RevOps professionals shopping for new tools.

To help, we asked leaders from RevOps communities to share their favorite RevOps tools for optimizing the RevOps process. 

Here’s what they had to say.

Natalie Furness, Chief Revenue Officer, RevOps Automated

Natalie Furness serves as Chief Revenue Officer at RevOps Automated, a RevOps services provider specializing in HubSpot implementations and tech stack optimization. 

Natalie’s must-haves: Grammarly and QuillBot

“Grammarly and Quillo are my main co-pilots for content creation, as sharing knowledge in RevOps is very important to me.”

On making Natalie’s job easier: LinkedIn Sales Navigator, PhantomBuster, Cognism, DealHub CPQ

“LinkedIn Sales Navigator, combined with PhantomBuster, is great for mapping people at target accounts for enrichment using a data source. For the UK market, we recommend Cognism.

HubSpot does so much that we often don’t need to look for tools, but DealHub CPQ has been a great addition to transform HubSpot into an Enterprise Level CRM.”

How to prioritize what’s next: Streamline the tech stack

“Evaluate tools regularly. Look for usage, including active accounts and feature usage. Those with low adoption or that duplicate existing tools should be reviewed. Where possible, look to consolidate as opposed to adding tools. Remember, every new tool requires integration management.”

Nicholas Gollop, Founder, RevOps On-Demand

RevOps On-Demand Founder Nicholas Gollop shared a few of his favorites below. He hopes a platform consolidating data across multiple systems that create one view to build a cohesive, complete revenue funnel analysis is coming soon. 

“Some exist, but I haven’t seen one that functions exactly as intended and can adjust to the thousands of different combinations of systems and setups out there,” said Nicholas.

Nicholas’s must-haves: Deduping and lead distribution tool, CPQ, Customer success platforms, data enrichment.

“Deduping allows me to send only things that matter to SDRs and AEs.

CPQ gives us more control over the deal desk function, approval flows, and discounting/legal policies.

Customer Success Platforms give us more clarity and visibility into usage and adoption data.”

On making Nicholas’s job easier: Deduping, CPQ, Customer Success Platforms

“Deduping reduces friction and wasted time across the teams. It also lets them know if the account is part of a larger parent structure.

CPQ helps us ensure customer pricing falls under the company’s general rules of engagement.

Customer Success Platforms provide further insights and minute segmentation of our customer base.”

How to prioritize what’s next: It’s time when current tech no longer meets our needs

“When I realize the tool is failing to meet our increasing demands and needs for adaptation. If we need to bend our policies to make the tools work, then that tool has outlived its usefulness, and we need one that adapts to us, not the other way around.”

Emerson McCuin, RevOps, HAAS Alert

Emerson McCuin, RevOps Manager at HAAS Alert, a collision mitigation service and digital traffic alert system, already leverages AI throughout his day but hopes to see more. 

“I’d love to see AI integrated into data cleanup. I use Insycle for data cleanup, but many of these processes rely on complicated fuzzy logic that isn’t always accurate and fails to pick up on duplicate records,” said Emerson. “For example, ABC Company in NYC vs ABC Company in New York City. I can see that they’re likely the same, but it would take me forever to go through each record. AI could be trained to look for and understand those differences.”

Emerson’s must-haves: Coefficient, ChatGPT, Google Sheets, Supered.io, QuotaPath, Insycle

“Coefficient pulls data from our CRM and other sources into Google Sheets so I can create dashboards for our leadership team, do some fundamental data analysis, or port over to PowerBI if I feel like doing advanced dashboarding.

I use ChatGPT daily to help with Excel formulas, AppScript/VBA code, and light Python coding for data analysis.

Excel is more robust, but I chose Google Sheets because it’s what Coefficient imports data into.

Supered.io is a tool to achieve better HubSpot CRM adoption, among other things.

QuotaPath has completely changed the way we manage quotas and commissions.

Insycle helps keep our CRM data clean by deduplicating and standardizing data formats.”

On making Emerson’s job easier: Streamline and automate processes

“The nice thing about Coefficient is that I can do scheduled data pulls to keep the data up to date.

While I know how to do a bit in each of these areas, ChatGPT has allowed me to do them a lot faster, and I can do more advanced things with these tools than I could without an AI assistant.

Google Sheets makes it very easy to share dashboards with my leadership team.

With Supered I can have a customized knowledgebase right in HubSpot for our reps to use, I can enforce processes, and even do HubSpot training right in HubSpot!

Before implementing QuotaPath, reps were self-reporting quotas in a spreadsheet, which meant a scramble at the end of each quota period, verifying quotas by multiple people, and likely many errors in the process. Now, commissions are automatically calculated based on the data in our CRM.

Insycle is a powerful and somewhat complicated tool, but once it’s set up, the number of duplicates and insufficient data decreases drastically.”

How to prioritize what’s next: When the pain of a process exceeds the pain of change.

“It’s time to add or replace a tool when the pain of a current process is greater than the pain of change. That’s not always easy to determine and requires discussion with multiple stakeholders and an analysis of return on investment.”

Andréa Faria, RevOps, Daloopa

Daloopa RevOps Leader Andréa Faria just wants data solutions that integrate smoothly with her CRM without duplicates or unreliable data. Is that too much to ask for? 

Andréa’s must haves: Jira Software and Jira Service Management, Python IDEs, Zapier

“Jira Software and Jira Service Management: tasks and projects management for internal and external demands.

Python automates and improves data cleaning.

Zapier enabled plug-and-play integration of CRMs and forms with our in-house platforms.”

On making Andréa’s job easier: Jira Software and Jira Service Management, Python IDEs, Zapier

“Jira gave us a full view of the team’s capacity.

Python allows us to manipulate data in a way the old systems and spreadsheets couldn’t handle.”

How to prioritize what’s next: Address new requirements or improve processes

“We start looking when our tech can no longer support new processes or if we find better solutions in the market through research or benchmarks.”

Create your tech stack with RevOps tools you’ll love

Thanks to our four contributors for sharing their favorite RevOps tools, how they know when it’s time to add something new to their tech stack, and tools they wish existed.

We hope you can leverage these insights as you create or finetune your RevOps tech stack.

Schedule time with our team today to learn how QuotaPath can fit into your RevOps tech stack to automate and simplify your sales compensation management process. 

What is Sales Commission Automation?

Sales commission automation is the use of software to automatically calculate, track, and pay sales commissions based on CRM or deal data, eliminating manual spreadsheets and reducing errors. It saves Finance and RevOps teams significant time while giving sales reps real-time visibility into their earnings, and if often draws data from your CRM and sales performance analytics and sends it to your payment systems. 

This is QuotaPath’s bread and butter. Sales commission automation software uses technology and integrates with other solutions to streamline automated commission tracking, management, and disbursement of sales commissions.

QuotaPath, for example, provides teams responsible for commission calculations with a system of truth and a more accurate way to run sales compensation.  

Take Prefect’s finance team, for example.

Thomas Egbert, SVP of Finance for the dataflow automation framework platform, sought to ditch time-consuming spreadsheets. He also wanted to give his sales team transparency into their earnings through a user-friendly experience.

Since automating commission tracking with QuotaPath, “We cut our time spent on commissions calculations by 50%+,” said Thomas. “This platform has significantly upgraded our sales compensation process. QuotaPath saves days of time worth of unnecessary spreadsheets and emails.”

Despite how many organizations quickly find value like Thomas by automating processes that typically slow teams down, 60% of organizations still rely on spreadsheets for manual calculations.

Will you automate a commission tracker app this year?

In this blog, we define sales commission automation, its benefits, choosing the right software, setting up your system, overcoming challenges, real-world examples of success, future trends, and streamlining sales commissions with automation.

Read on.

Why Automate Sales Commissions?

Sales teams lose hours each month manually calculating commissions.

In fact, 20% of a reps’ total time is spent on administrative tasks, taking time away from generating real revenue.

Sales compensation automation removes this burden, increases accuracy, and builds trust—all while delivering real transparency.

By streamlining calculations for multi‑year deals, renewals, demos, specific products, and individual contributors, automation also automatically tags all sales reps involved, tracks commission earnings, and gives reps real-time visibility into current and forecasted income. This method saves time and eliminates errors and issues from calculating commissions in spreadsheets.

Benefits of automating sales commissions

The key benefits of commission calculation automation are that it streamlines the incentive management process and enables easy commission structure optimization. It simplifies steps like earnings calculations, deal approvals, payments, and amortization of sales commissions. 

Automating sales commissions offers many benefits, including:

Saves time: It eliminates manual processes and excessive back-and-forth communication in commission tracking, calculation, and error resolution.

Increased accuracy: Payment calculations occur through CRM to payment system integration, reducing errors and building trust across the sales team.

Eliminates shadow accounting from manual spreadsheets by providing automated calculations.

Enables real time commission visibility.

Improves sales rep motivation and quota attainment by helping reps understand how their actions tie to pay.

Include a link in a new concluding section that says something like how top performing organizations use automation and real time reporting for their benefit

Transparency: Helps quota-carrying team members understand how they earn commissions as well as when and how much in their paycheck.

Sales rep motivation: A greater understanding of the compensation plan gives it the power to motivate sales behaviors that drive business goals.

Single source of truth: Instead of a password-protected spreadsheet or platform, automating sales commissions gets everyone on the same page in discussing sales incentive accuracies or discrepancies.

Greater visibility: Provides visibility into the performance of your sales compensation plans.

In short, automating sales commission processes isn’t just a time-saver—it’s a strategic performance driver. Real-time reporting and automation empower top-performing organizations to act fast, make smarter decisions, and consistently prove ROI. In fact, TechRadar reports that 87% of analysts now use automation to streamline reporting, enabling faster insights and improved efficiency that are central to success in data-driven organizations

Choosing the right sales commission automation software

The global Sales Commission Software Market is expected to triple its 2020 value by 2028. 

So, it should come as no surprise that there are many competitors in the space, including Spiff, Xactly, CaptivateIQ, Performio, Apttus, and, of course, QuotaPath.

Despite the many options available in the marketplace, choosing a sales compensation software partner isn’t difficult as long as you know what to pay attention to during the selection process.

We’ve covered you with what to remember to help you select the right sales commission automation software.

Integration with Your CRM

Your compensation tool should natively integrate with your CRM so commission calculations stay accurate and up to date—without manual refreshes or nightly updates. With QuotaPath, data flows automatically from Salesforce, HubSpot, and other platforms, ensuring your team always works with trusted numbers. Explore QuotaPath Integrations.

Customizable Compensation Plans

Every sales organization evolves. Choose a platform that allows you to easily add new team members, adjust incentives, and test plan drafts against historical sales data. QuotaPath’s AI-powered plan builder and component library make it simple to design and update comp structures as you scale, while providing real-time visibility into plan performance.

Forecasting and ASC 606

Sales leaders and reps need more than a payout tracker—they need accurate forecasting. The right platform should provide quota attainment projections, executive dashboards, and pipeline-linked forecasts. QuotaPath does exactly that while also supporting accounting teams with ASC 606 compliance, ensuring commissions are recognized properly and reported in line with financial regulations.

Setting up your sales commission automation system

Once you’ve selected your commission software, you’ll have to line up a few things to set it up correctly. 

These include:

Step 1: Define Your Commission Structure

• Clearly outline commission rates, rules, and eligibility criteria.
• Decide whether your structure includes accelerators, bonuses, or product-specific incentives.

Step 2: Prepare Accurate Sales Data

• Audit your CRM to ensure sales records are complete and error-free.
• Standardize data entry processes to prevent discrepancies.

Step 3: Integrate With Existing Tools

• Confirm that your commission software integrates with your CRM, payroll, and accounting systems.
• Use native integrations (like QuotaPath’s CRM integrations) to avoid manual uploads.

Step 4: Gather Historical Data

• Import past commission data to create benchmarks.
• Use historical earnings to test and validate new plans.

Step 5: Document Your Commission Policy

• Write out your official commission rules for transparency.
• Make policies accessible to sales, finance, and leadership.

Step 6: Provide Support and Training

• Build onboarding materials for your sales team.
• Train admins on how to manage, adjust, and troubleshoot plans.

Step 7: Assign Decision-Makers

• Identify who is responsible for setup, approvals, and ongoing plan management.
• Align Finance, RevOps, and Sales leadership early in the process.

Step 8: Allocate Budget

• Set aside funds for the software license, integrations, and any required customization.

Step 9: Implement Data Security Protocols

• Ensure sensitive sales and payout data is encrypted and access-controlled.
• Review compliance standards for your industry.

Step 10: Test the System

• Run a pilot group with sample data to validate accuracy.
• Use test scenarios (e.g., multi-year deals, renewals) to confirm payouts calculate correctly.

Step 11: Communicate the Rollout

• Create a communication plan so reps understand what’s changing.
• Share FAQs and quick-start guides to build confidence.

Step 12: Ensure Legal and Regulatory Compliance

• Verify that your system aligns with labor laws and financial reporting requirements, including ASC 606.

Step 13: Define a Dispute Resolution Process

• Establish how commission disputes will be escalated and resolved.
• Use your platform’s in-app communication tools to streamline resolution.

Step 14: Choose Performance Metrics

• Decide which KPIs (quota attainment, payout timeliness, error rates) you’ll track.

Step 15: Set Up Management Tools

• Enable dashboards and reporting features for leaders and reps.
• Ensure analytics tools align with your business goals.

Step 16: Maintain Documentation and Records

• Keep a digital trail of all commission rules, payments, and disputes for transparency.
• Store records for audit-readiness and long-term trust.

Overcoming common challenges

Although sales commission automation ultimately streamlines and simplifies the sales commission process, some common challenges should be considered. Below are the top five challenges and how to solve them so you are prepared when you encounter them.

Challenge #1: Complex commission structures 

Many organizations have intricate commission structures with various tiers, bonuses, and exceptions. Automating these complex structures can be challenging.

Solution: Simplify comp plans by aligning them to business goals and restricting each plan to three components: an accelerator, a standard commission rate, and a bonus.

Challenge #2: Data integration

Integrating data from multiple sources, such as CRM and ERP, to calculate commissions accurately can be complicated, especially if data quality is poor.

Solution: When shopping for a sales commission automation system, remember how easy it will be to integrate the platform with your deal source of truth.

Challenge #3. Dispute resolution

 When commission disputes arise, automated systems need transparent processes for resolution to maintain trust among sales reps.

Solution: Ensure your platform has in-app abilities and task notifications to flag and resolve commission issues for reps and admins.

Challenge #4. Training: 

Scheduling and implementing team-wide training to use the new system effectively can be time-consuming.

Solution: Find a tech partner with a user-friendly interface and multiple options to administer training.

Challenge #5. Scalability

As your business grows, the commission system must scale and adapt to handle increased data volume and complexity.

Solution: During the buying process, ask your vendors for references that have grown and scaled with their platform to share their experience. Pay attention to how easy it is to add new teammates, swap subscriptions, and adjust comp plans. Note, QuotaPath helps resolve these issues with in-app dispute handling, flexible plans, and fast onboarding.

Sales Commission Automation Success Stories

Don’t take our word for it. Sales commission automation works. Here are a few examples of businesses that have benefited from automated commission tracking.

runZero

Problem:
As runZero rapidly scaled, commission spreadsheets became error-prone and time-consuming, leading to frustration and lack of earnings transparency.

Solution:
They integrated QuotaPath with HubSpot, automating commission calculations and streamlining reporting. Onboarding began within four days of signing, and the team was fully automated in under two months.

Result:
Commission errors were eliminated, reps gained transparency into earnings, and the team scaled without the burden of manual spreadsheets.

EverView

Problem:
With 35 complex compensation plans across 80 reps, EverView ’s sellers spent 2 hours per week calculating commissions. Half of the team admitted they didn’t understand their plans and had no visibility into earnings until payday.

Solution:
EverView implemented QuotaPath, consolidating 35 comp plans into just 8, and eventually into 1 streamlined structure. Reps gained 24/7 visibility into attainment and earnings.

Result:
The overhaul boosted rep confidence, improved focus, and drove performance—leading to EverView’s highest sales year ever, where 70% of the team met quota and 20% exceeded 90% attainment.

Blackthorn

Problem:
Blackthorn relied on Salesforce formulas for commission calculations. As the company grew, new teams (SDRs, CS, Partnerships) made commission structures too complex for formulas to handle.

Solution:
They adopted QuotaPath’s sales commission automation platform, onboarding in less than two weeks and simplifying commission tracking across all teams.

Result:
Blackthorn saved 5–10 hours every time a new quota was introduced and experienced three consecutive months of record-breaking sales post-implementation.

Future trends in sales commission automation

Our 2024 Sales Compensation Plan Report revealed four key takeaways surrounding sales compensation plan design, management, and execution, and its impact on performance and commission disputes. 

• 100% of Revenue leaders agree that sales comp plans need improvement.
• There’s a disconnect between how RevOps, Finance, and Sales view the efficacy of comp plans.
• Most sales reps find their comp plans challenging to understand.
• 91% of organizations have less than 80% of their sales reps hitting quota.

Compensation plans must align with the company’s goals to motivate sales rep behaviors and be more straightforward for reps to understand.

Therefore, in 2024, leaders must overhaul their sales compensation plans and processes to align with business goals, increase sales rep motivation, and simplify plans.

Conclusion: Streamlining your sales commissions with automation

Sales commission automation simplifies incentive management by replacing spreadsheets with software to pull data from your CRM to your payment systems. This saves time, reduces errors, builds transparency and visibility, and motivates reps to drive the attainment of business goals.

Selecting the right solution and implementing sales compensation software isn’t difficult, especially with a supportive vendor partner.

Get started today to address the top sales compensation challenges of 2024 quickly. Try QuotaPath with a free trial, or schedule time with a team member for a tailored demo.

According to Ascendix, 150,000 companies used Salesforce as their customer relationship management (CRM) system in 2023. Meanwhile, 113,000 companies used HubSpot, per Backlinko. 

However, these numbers remain in constant flux as organizations pass between the two in hopes of optimizing their processes for the best results.

But which system is truly better when it comes to HubSpot vs Salesforce?  The answer, of course, is “it depends.”

In this comprehensive exploration, we delve into the nuances that set HubSpot and Salesforce apart, unraveling the distinctive features that make users contemplate a switch from one powerhouse to the other. 

We unravel why businesses transition between these CRM giants, from functionality and user-friendliness to scalability and integration capabilities.

Essential App for Sales

HubSpot named QuotaPath one of 20 Essential Apps for Sales.

Read More

And to do so, we recruited some expertise. 

Joining us in this knowledge exchange are Jeremy Steinbring, Founder of RevOnyx, a Salesforce and RevOps consulting service, and Nicholas Gollop, RevOps & GTM Strategy Advisor at RevOps On-Demand. 

Read on as we dissect the differences and uncover the motivations leading organizations to switch.

Whether embarking on your CRM journey or contemplating a switch, this piece promises insights that will shape your decision-making process and pave the way for enhanced customer relationship management. 

Why teams switch CRMs

We’ll start by exploring some of the reasons teams switch CRMs. 

While many transitions share similar factors, there are some outlier cases.

“I’ve led two CRM transitions this year for clients, the first from HubSpot and Salesforce, and the other was the reverse,” said Jeremy. 

The latter marked a particularly unique use case to switch to HubSpot. 

Jeremy said the company had another business under its umbrella, and it grew too complicated to keep the organizations in separate CRMs. So, instead of fitting the second business into Salesforce and splitting 300 users into two buckets, they moved everyone to HubSpot.

“The parent organization needed the basics of a CRM, out-of-the-box integrations, and calendar syncing, so HubSpot made sense,” Jeremy said. 

He added that if you’re on Salesforce, in his experience, the most common reason to come off of it is price.

Reversely, Nicholas led his CloudCall team through a transition from HubSpot to Salesforce for Salesforce’s enterprise appeal.

“While HubSpot is improving significantly, it still lacks a lot of ‘enterprise-level’ features that you absolutely need to run at scale, such as validation rules and better profile management,” Nicholas said. 

When to choose HubSpot or Salesforce

Below, we put together some of the best use cases for either. 

“I look at CRMs like cars,” Jeremy said. “You can buy the $150,000 Ferrari, or you can buy the $40,000 SUV. Both get you where you want to go, but they serve different purposes and are different vehicles.”

HubSpot is more affordable and accessible to get into the product than Salesforce. The user interface is more straightforward, too. 

“There’s less customization that can happen in HubSpot. It’s simpler, and because of that, you can get people ramped higher and build adoption,” said Jeremy. 

But you give up the Ferrari version in the process.

“You sacrifice a ton of functionality. When a team is going enterprise or scaling quickly, usually Salesforce is the better option,” Jeremy said. “It’s also better for someone who wants to build their own tools within Salesforce versus integrating a third-party one.”

For instance, if you wanted to save $20,000 on a lead routing tool, you could hire someone like Jeremy to build it within Salesforce (or put in the request with a developer). 

CRM best practices

Regardless of the HubSpot vs Salesforce debate, both RevOps leaders agreed on the following best practices when rolling out a new CRM. 

Create a business case: “There is always pushback with change,” Nicholas said. “Present a compelling business case to show how much more could be done in one CRM versus the other.”

Documentation: Create a short video library that guides your team through different use cases of their role within the CRM. “This is easier to digest, and you can break it down based on function,” Jeremy said. 

Provide technical documentation for the admin team, such as backend automation configuration. 

Position documentation with tasks that users must do by connecting it to something they know as part of their job.

“Document everything along the way, as this will massively help when running enablement sessions,” Nicholas said. 

Open office hours: As the admin, make yourself available on launch day and in the weeks following to offer support and make changes.

Shadow teams: “Talk to as many stakeholders as possible, from all levels, to ensure the CRM specs are captured correctly,” Nicholas said. 

Mapping: Map out your discussions and draw a literal map of the process flow. 

Take your time on the migration: “Don’t rush,” Nicholas said. “A migration like this is already tough to get sponsorship, so when you do, you need to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible to avoid losing confidence early on.”

Consider hiring someone: This is a monumental task, and will take significant time and resources to move a team from one CRM to the next or start with your first one.

“Whether it’s me or not, you need someone to help you — especially if you’re going through this for the first time,” said Jeremy.

Choosing between HubSpot vs Salesforce

Choosing the right CRM system for your business is an important (and often expensive) decision. It can help you streamline your sales and marketing processes, improve customer relationships, and increase revenue.

However, knowing which is right for your business can be challenging with so many CRM systems on the market. 

This is where Salesforce and HubSpot come in.

Salesforce and HubSpot are two of the most popular CRM systems. They offer a wide range of features and functionality, and businesses of all sizes and industries use them.

But which CRM system is right for your business?

HubSpot is a good option if you are a small or medium-sized business. HubSpot is easy to use and set up, offering various features specifically designed for small and medium-sized businesses.

If you are a large enterprise, Salesforce is likely the better option through its wide range of advanced features and functionality. It can also be customized to meet the specific needs of large enterprises and usually integrates better with third-party tools. 

No matter what size your business is or what industry you are in, choosing a CRM system that fits your specific needs is essential. By comparing different CRM systems and selecting the one that is right for you, you can set yourself up for success.

About QuotaPath

QuotaPath supports RevOps, Finance, and Sales leaders with a trusted, user-friendly sales compensation management system that integrates with CRMs such as HubSpot and Salesforce and invoice systems like Quickbooks. 

Whether you’re navigating the robust functionalities of HubSpot or harnessing the power of Salesforce, QuotaPath ensures that your compensation strategies align effortlessly with your chosen CRM. 

Learn more by scheduling time with our team or sign up for a free trial.