This is a guest post written by RevPartners, a management and consulting firm that supports scaling companies with RevOps strategy and execution for teams without a dedicated RevOps function. 

Why QuotaPath?

Spreadsheets? More like deadsheets. If you’re using spreadsheets to manually track sales commission, you’re living in the past, inviting errors, and burning the one resource there never seems to be enough of…time!  It doesn’t have to be this way. QuotaPath automates sales compensation, including the commission tracking traditionally completed in spreadsheets.

With QuotaPath:

• Commission tracking, payment, and approval for Finance
• Forecasting and pipe management for RevOps
• Commission visibility and goal setting for Sales

Why use Quotapth’s integration with HubSpot?

• Increased adoption of HubSpot
• Ability to see QuotaPath commission data directly in HubSpot
• Provides a single source of truth for attainment and earnings, in turn creating alignment, accuracy, and a better user experience

So, how does it work?

Prerequisites

Two items must be in place before commission tracking can fully automate.

The first? Your compensation plans. Using QuotaPath’s plan wizard, admins can build out each plan in a few steps and map the various rules of the plans accordingly.

Then comes the sales process. Leaders should have a structured, documented, communicated, and adopted sales process in place that determines when a deal classifies as closed/won, and at what points the rep earns commissions.

Having these two tasks completed ahead of time will ensure a smooth, seamless, and beneficial operation!

Compensation Plan Types

Sales Reps

Many comp plans exist for sales reps, but four of the most common include the single rate commission plan, commission with accelerators, commission with bonuses, and commission with multiyear accelerators.

The organization’s go-to-market goals often determine which type of plan the rep earns commissions from. 

For instance, if one of the company’s goals involves securing longer contracts, the comp plan usually reflects that by paying more on multi-year contracts. In this case, they’re likely implementing the commission with a multiyear accelerator plan. 

Sales Leaders

Sales leaders’ compensation typically falls into the following three buckets. Team-based commission pays a single commission rate on every deal the team closes.

Team-based commission with accelerators pays a different commission rate on deals the team closes dependent on the teamwide quota attainment.

The third, team-based commission with bonuses, pays single-rate commissions on deals the team closes and a bonus when the team hits quota. 

Sales Development Representative (Business Development Representative/Marketing Development Representative)

The three types of SDR comp plan examples we see include the activity-based plan for when a rep earns commissions based on the number of demos set, qualified opportunities created, etc. A revenue-based plan pays a commission on the opportunities the SDR created that an AE later closes. The third combines the former two, paying on both defined activities and revenue generated.

Account Management and Customer Success

Account Management and Customer Success teams earn variable pay from usually three types of comp plans. Retention-based plans pay a commission on renewals. Retention and upsell bonuses pay bonuses when accounts renew and when upsold.

Lastly, the retention-based bonus pays a bonus on every account renewed.  

Sales Process

When it comes to the sales process, data hygiene is paramount. At a minimum, all sales stages (amount, owners, closed/won) must remain correct and up-to-date. In addition, forecasting quota attainment and potential earnings provide reps instant visibility into the impact of their projected pipeline. 

How to automate sales compensation in QuotaPath

Automating commission tracking in QuotaPath is a very straightforward process. However, you may find it helpful to familiarize yourself with some common QuotaPath terms. The “plan” is the name of the compensation plan (e.g. SDR Plan 2022). Meanwhile, commissions, bonuses, and accelerators define as the “paths” that make up the plan.

• Bonus: Paid upon reaching a milestone (attainment % or number)
• Commission: Paid % of closed won revenue
• Accelerator: After hitting a milestone (# or %), paid a higher dollar amount

The path to the future is QuotaPath

If you’re still tracking commission manually, step into the 2020s!  A better way to run commissions exist and it saves time while ensuring accurate and on-time payouts. For a two-way commission tracking experience, sync HubSpot CRM and get on the right path, QuotaPath!  

To learn more about RevPartners, visit revpartners.io.

We’ve had a busy and exciting month at QuotaPath! 

Just how busy? 

How’s two incredible new feature launches, three native integrations, and an overhaul to our QuotaPath API sound? 

(Hold for applause)

Our newest features, and most requested, include Payouts Eligibility and Multi-Currency. We also added CRM integrations with Copper CRM, Sugar CRM, and Zoho CRM, and made significant enhancements to our QuotaPath API to make it easier for our customers to build their own integrations.

To learn more about each new addition, read on!

Payouts Eligibility

In short, our new payouts eligibility feature enables QuotaPath users to define eligibility rules and automate when payouts will go out. Our new eligibility mapping wizard makes it easy to define and map r eligibility rules, which currently include eligibility by invoice and eligibility by date. 

Multi-Currency

With the launch of multi-currency, QuotaPath users can now view their commissions in their local currencies. Previously, users manually converted their commission info from USD to their local currency. With the launch of multi-currency, admins can assign specific workspace members to a currency that will display their rep level functions such as Earnings, My Deals, and My Plans in the selected currency. This enables reps to quickly understand their commission info.

API Enhancements

Additionally, we made significant enhancements to our QuotaPath API by reducing the time it takes to create new integrations from months to days (or even hours!). You’ll no longer have to program any app logic to create your own API implementations. Simply pipe your data from your system to ours and vastly reduce the need for engineering resources. 

QuotaPath CRM Integrations

Last, and certainly not least, QuotaPath now offers native integrations with Copper CRM, Sugar CRM, and Zoho CRM. With these new integrations, users can feed deal data directly into QuotaPath to deliver revenue teams immediate access to their existing and future earnings, total annual recurring revenue, and attainment progress.

We hope you’re as excited about these as we are! And, shoutout to our entire engineering and product teams for making these enhancements a reality. Y’all are the real MVPs. 

Stay tuned for more  QuotaPath product news next month! See you then! 

Every month, QuotaPath collects nominations from our customers to name a Quokka of the Month. We’re thrilled to announce our QuokkaPath August winner below.

Nominated for excelling as a mentor and his incredible dad jokes, Gerard Ayala has been named our August Quokka of the Month!

This Senior Account Executive for Victorious SEO has more than 10 years of sales experience, including 3 with Victorious. Since joining the SEO marketing agency, Gerard earned Victorious Club twice, a company recognition for sales reps that finish in the top 3 in the percentage of annual sales to quota. He has also become an instrumental member of their mentorship program.

Below, we caught up with Gerard to learn more about our QuokkaPath August winner!

What has helped you succeed in sales? 

In addition to the stellar training I’ve received over the past few years, Victorious’s team-first culture has created a camaraderie amongst our reps that is unlike anything I’ve experienced in other sales roles. 

We are all willing to help each other at any moment, and we often step in to help close deals for reps who are out sick, on PTO, or otherwise unavailable. 

I would say the one area where I feel that I have a unique advantage is my previous non-sales work experience in hospitality management. This experience gave me the ability to easily build rapport with prospects and practice active listening, which has helped me truly understand a client’s challenges and goals.

How do you serve as a mentor to other sales reps on your team?

At Victorious, departments actively practice distributed training, meaning that individual contributors in the sales department assist with training new hires. This allows for deeper collaboration between team members and provides us the opportunity to share best practices across the team. Armed with unique perspectives from across the team, we’re able to mentor new folks and share success stories in ways that are not possible in traditional mentoring approaches.

What advice would you tell your younger self on the first day of your first sales job?

If I could start my sales career over again, I would invest more time in learning from proven sales leaders earlier on. I spent a few years mostly winging it, relying on sub-par training and rapport-building skills. I ended up making a lot of friends but not a lot of money. Those 3-4 years could have been much more lucrative if I had approached sales a little differently.

Lastly, describe what it’s like to work on the Victorious team. What keeps you there?

Our growing company’s ability to cultivate and maintain a thoughtful (and intentional) team-first, family-friendly culture is a highlight of my current role. We also execute well on new ideas and act on constructive employee feedback. This is truly a phenomenal organization!

Learn more about Victorious SEO and get a free SEO consultation.

About QuokkaPath

Like a gaggle of smiling quokkas, we’re happiest when our customers excel! 

That’s why every month, our customers nominate someone from their team who has gone above and beyond in the workplace. From there, a QuotaPath Quokka Committee selects a winner.

Congrats again, Gerard, and thank you for sharing your story!

Your sales compensation plan is all set up, you have balanced a plan that is attainable yet challenging. It’s lucrative for the reps and profitable for the company. It has some accelerators, it encourages consistency; it’s your magnum opus. And then the unthinkable happens: one of your middle-of-the-road reps closes a bluebird sales deal. 

Wait, this is an article about sales compensation, not birdwatching. What do you mean, a bluebird deal?

What is a bluebird in sales? A bluebird is a deal that is substantially larger than your average deal or one that closes much quicker than your standard deal. Many organizations consider a bluebird deal as one opportunity when the contract value is greater than a rep’s quota.

What do you do? Your first instinct might be to panic. You have never written a commission check this big in your entire sales career! What happens if this bluebird deal isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? Where is that large automobile? Wait, no, that’s Talking Heads. Anyway, here’s what you should do. 

Step 1: Celebrate the bluebird deal

Your rep sold the biggest deal in company history. The very first thing you do? Scream it from the rooftops. Celebrate your rep. Send out an organization-wide email about how this is an incredible achievement for your rep, their manager, the sales engineer who helped close it, and the SDR who sourced the deal. Your VP of Finance might be wringing their hands, but now is not the time. If you want to close more of these gigantic deals (hint: you do), then you need to signal to your team that this is a good thing.

Step 2: Pay your rep on the bluebird sales deal (with a smile on your face)

Okay, now is when the rubber hits the road for you. Pay your rep. Pay them accordingly to their commission plan. If you try anything funny, you’re going to have issues. Don’t try to reduce their sales commission rates. Don’t try to cap their commission. If you ask a room full of salespeople if they’ve ever had someone mess with their commission, you’re likely to have at least a dozen hands go up. And if you ask them about that experience, at least one of them will probably say they quit because of it. They probably posted a scathing LinkedIn post about it, too. Losing a top rep purely because you didn’t want to pay a commission that they earned is a very expensive (and unethical) mistake. Pay them on the bluebird sales deal.

Step 3: Modify commission payment terms if needed

There is one nuance to bluebird deals: timing of commission payouts. If you normally pay your reps after the customer has been fully onboarded, then this probably won’t be an issue for you. However, if you’re like most companies and don’t wait until onboarding is complete, it can get a little more complicated. Essentially, you don’t want to pay out on this bluebird sales deal only for the deal to evaporate. Then you’d be stuck trying to clawback a gigantic commission check, or worse your rep quits and you have to kiss that commission check goodbye. 

So, explain the extenuating circumstances to your rep. Consider giving them a portion of the commission at the typical cadence and pay the rest out on a set schedule. If you typically pay out after the deal is closed, you pay out 25% of the commission on the next pay period and the other 75% once the customer has paid their invoice. Or, if you usually pay commissions after the first month’s invoice is paid, pay out equal installments over the first 3 invoices. 

Step 4: Evaluate your comp plan for next time

You might think this was a black swan event. And, it very well might be. But that’s not a good reason to skip planning for the next time it happens. You want to avoid discouraging people from closing these bluebird deals. After all, they can affect an entire sales team quota. We don’t recommend limiting the commission they earn on these deals. However, you might want to consider reducing the accelerators once someone hits above 300% of quota. Maybe you actually write the modified commission payment terms into the compensation document.

There you have it! Congratulations on your bluebird deal. Now you know how to handle it in a professional and expert way.

Also, if you are looking to calculate commission on this bluebird deal – or any deal for that matter – you should be using ​​QuotaPath. QuotaPath is a tool designed to help automate the commission tracking process for you, your finance team, and (maybe most importantly) your sales reps. 

The blog below includes 10 best practices and an example compensation communication plan to follow when deploying new plans and adjustments.

It’s mid-year. The sales team has been hitting their goals. Well, until the company rolled out the new compensation plan designed to reward reps for selling new product lines to different market segments. The reps didn’t even realize that the new compensation plan design went into effect as leaders only briefly mentioned the changes during a recent meeting.

But, as reps received their first paycheck on the new plan, the amount on their checks failed to match their expectations. Many reps anticipated commission checks based on the accelerators from the previous plan and at a higher commission rate.

Instead, they saw lower earnings per deal since the new plan doesn’t include the same tiered commission structure. 

Reps felt blind-sided, disappointed, and suspicious. They wondered why there wasn’t more of an announcement or, better yet, a dedicated training. This is their paycheck, after all.

Left unchecked, this sort of experience leads to frustration, uncertainty, and poor morale. 

Some reps even quit over miscommunication of comp plans.

That’s why it’s essential that leadership formulates a sales compensation communication plan when altering the comp plan or changing quotas. 

The plan needs to:

• Include sales-leader-driven workshops to review any changes or adjustments to the plan
• Explain the why behind the changes and the math
• Share how the company will support the team with the new objectives
• Create a safe space for the team to ask questions

To start, read on. 

10 things every sales compensation communication plan should include

1. Use consistent messaging each time you share the plan. This helps avoid confusion and misunderstandings.

2. Leverage various methods to communicate the new plan. This is important because everyone learns differently. You might circulate written documents, a video explaining the plan, example calculations, group presentations, and 1:1 discussions. This increases the odds of understanding the plan and its ramifications for the individual. Plus, the group and individual discussions provide opportunities for reps to ask questions with immediate answers.

3. Start broad and become more detailed. For example, when sharing a new plan with the entire sales organization the messaging will be more general. But as sales leaders present it to a specific sales team, or 1:1 with an individual, the messaging becomes more detailed and specific to the individuals involved.

4. Create a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) document. Distribute it alongside the plan documents. Proactively answering these questions saves time and boosts plan understanding more rapidly.

5. Provide calculation examples based on various scenarios. You can incorporate this into the actual plan documents or by providing the sales team with forecasting software that calculates commission amounts for any deal in the pipeline. Offering such a tool answers a multitude of questions and provides clarity around how the new plan impacts everyone’s income potential.

6. Explain why the plan is changing and how the company will back the reps through these changes. When your team understands this it makes it easier to accept the change. When reps know why leadership adjusted a plan and how new resources and enablement will support them, enthusiasm and acceptance will follow.

7. Share the benefits of the new plan. Team members want to understand why they should be excited about the new comp plan and how they can optimize their income on it. 

8. Plan documentation should be just the right length. Avoid lengthy comp plan documentation that buries details in a manuscript. But make sure to cover all of the important details. Proper documentation will cover the key points clearly and concisely.

9. Skip the legalese. Don’t get too technical or use a lot of confusing jargon in the plan documentation. It needs to be straightforward and easy to understand. Otherwise, reps may think you are trying to hide something, which decreases their trust in the plan and management.

10. Clearly define how performance ties to reward. You can accomplish this by explaining how you will measure performance, weighted factors, and how to calculate earnings.

An example compensation communication plan

As part of our sales compensation best practices, below we’ve provided a communication plan to adopt and modify.

Step 1 – Educate management

Before rolling out the new comp plan, introduce the plan to all levels of management. Explain all of the elements, why they made the changes, how it impacts the salesforce and whom, and in what ways. Highlight the benefits of the new plan and how to optimize commissions on the new plan. Share plan documents, FAQs, videos, what-if calculators, promo video templates, and any other plan launch materials.

Step 2 – High-level review of the new plan and the roll-out process

Senior management from the salse organization, such as the VP of Sales, should review with the team a high-level review. The strategy is to energize and engage the entire sales organization as they launch the new comp plan. Following the session, send an email to everyone in the sales organization recapping the discussion along with a video reviewing the plan highlights and roll-out process.

Step 3 – More detailed review of the new plan

Next, sales managers should present a detailed review of the plan to their teams. Explain the plan in terms of how it impacts both the team and individual contributors. Distribute detailed plan documents, FAQs, videos, what-if calculators, and other plan launch materials to sales team members for their review.

Step 4 – One-on-one plan review

Then, sales managers meet with each rep on their team to review how the new plan impacts the specific individual. This gives reps the chance to privately ask their questions or raise concerns over the new sales compensation plan. Reps are also provided with the option to present any additional questions via email, private chat, or phone as needed.

Step 5 – Plan verification

Lastly, ask for reps to show they understand their plans by signing off on them. This marks an essential step in creating alignment and transparency across the comp planning process. Leadership should introduce plan verification or re-verification anytime they issue a change to the compensation plan. Complete this by using DocuSign, via email, in person, or by leveraging our in-app Plan Verification feature.

Compensation communication plans are critical

It is essential to create a compensation communication plan when designing or altering sales comp plans. The best plan won’t motivate reps or drive desired behaviors if they don’t understand how the plan works. Failing to effectively communicate plan changes and how reps can optimize their income under the new plan, leads to frustration, loss of trust, demotivation, and reps who choose to quit.

To see QuotaPath’s Plan Verification feature and streamline your compensation communication plan, schedule a custom demo with our team. 

Interested in some of our other free resources? Check them out:

• Sales compensation calculator
• Sales commission plan template + commission tracker
• Quota:OTE Ratio Calculator
• Sales Funnel Calculator
  

On Sales Nerds Live Ep. 3, our host and QuotaPath Sales Nerd, Graham Collins welcomed Carabiner Group Account Executive Amelia Taylor to the show!

Amelia recently earned the title “Cold Calling Champion” after winning several LinkedIn Live cold calling competitions put on by RevGenius.

Watch the 35-minute episode below and pay attention to Amelia’s most successful cold-calling greeting, social selling tactics, and how to do “dark social” right. Scroll down for other key takes from episode 3!

About Amelia: A former real estate agent, Amelia today sells and supports the RevOps services of the Carabiner Group. The mom of two lives in Florida and loves to write. She’s also currently reading Jeff Bezos’s book, “Invent & Wander.”

3 key takeaways from Sales Nerds Live! Ep. 3

The cold calling greeting that works for someone else may not work for you

Put down your sales pitch examples pdf! What works well for someone else may not work for you, so you’ll have to experiment with messaging and build a natural flow.

Amelia, for instance, found success asking, “How are you?” after stuttering through the greeting, “May I make a suggestion?” (a line that worked well for a coworker).

It’s human nature for the person on the other line to ask you the question in return, and Amelia uses this as an opportunity to have an honest conversation.

“I answer honestly and transparently about how my day is going,” Amelia said. “If I breakdown my barriers, they’ll break down theirs.”

Then she’ll pivot the conversation by saying, “I have an idea for you.”

Social selling needs to be strategic

Graham mentioned that the social selling tactics he sees entail automated canned messaging after accepting a connection request.

“You have to be extremely strategic,” Amelia said. “Narrow your social efforts to ideal customer profiles based on what funding round they’re on, what industry, and role at the company.”

Use social to build out your champions’ relationships.

Dark social involves a more indirect approach

“It’s not that dark,” Amelia joked.

Dark social means showing up in the online places, communities, and apps where your buyers collaborate with their peers.

“It’s an underground way to find your buyers, but it’s easier than other outbound efforts because they’re already there,” Amelia said.

The key, Amelia said, is to offer resources and deliver value without directly pitching your product. Instead, provide blogs, recommend contacts or solutions at other companies, and establish trust.

For sales tips on follow-ups, getting a quick “huddle” meeting over social, and other selling best practices, watch the entire episode.

And, to see previous and future Sales Nerds Live! episodes check out our page here or our LinkedIn. Want to be a guest? E-mail kelly@quotapath.com.

Right now, tech companies are going through mass layoffs due to the emerging recession. However, maximizing your business’ return on investments is the best way to retain a talented sales team and deepen profits. According to TechRepublic, technology, like commission tracking software, can play a key role in helping executives optimize risk and follow through on business strategy adjustments. 

For instance, data science platforms can strengthen automation, connect disparate tech stacks, and detect both risks and opportunities via machine learning. 

And while the commissions software space is but a fraction of the size of big data, the role this technology can play in bolstering sales, increasing bottom lines, and even retaining talent hasn’t gone unnoticed.

The industry has caught on, and a rise in commissions management solutions has hit the market in the past 5 years. (QuotaPath included!)

Commissions continue to motivate sales teams in the midst of a looming economy

As sales commission tracking tools continue to become more popular, GTM teams have started realizing that the commission formula in Excel is no longer viable or scalable.

Leaders seek efficient and accurate commission management solutions that align departments and provide instant access to information for anyone who touches the compensation process. Transparency into how, when, and what reps get paid on is not only a must-have but a motivator.

A commission tool like QuotaPath, for example, allows sellers to see progress toward quota and their variable pay in real-time. With a forecasting toggle feature, the commission payment software also shows reps, leaders, and finance how the existing pipeline impacts projected annual recurring revenue and earnings goals.

But, we recognize that we’re not alone in the market.

So, as you’re evaluating which commissions management services platform to use, consider the following. 

Tool Accessibility

Do you want compensation plan software that will allow you to add plans and adjustments as you scale? 

QuotaPath makes it easy to quickly add new members of the team, build out new comp plans, and drop in changes all one your own. But should you need us, we’re quick to respond.

Forecast earnings/attainments 

Does the platform provide executive- and rep-level reporting on pipeline forecast and quota attainment?

Find a tool that automatically generates accurate forecasts based on your CRM so that business leaders can understand their sales team’s projections. 

ASC-606 Compliant

Is it compliant with ASC 606 regulations? 

This is new to the SaaS world, and if you’re not careful, it could be something you overlook when looking for commission tracking software. This new regulation requires revenue recognition standards for all businesses that enter into contracts. QuotaPath has the power to provide accounting teams with the ability to recognize commission expenses immediately. 

Fast time-to-value

How long will it take your team to get your system up and running? When will your team be trained on it, and how soon can it run commissions for you?

Here, we provide the fastest onboarding process in the biz without sacrificing quality. 

Trusted data and math

Can you trust the info is correct and up-to-date?

Send us your comp plans and we’ll run commissions for you. Check our math.

Our native integrations (truly native, meaning no manual refreshes or nightly updates) pull data automatically from your CRM. As long as that data is correct, so is QuotaPath’s. Automate Salesforce commissions, HubSpot commission tracking, integrate with Close, Maxio, you name it.

Partner relationship

How difficult will it be to get in touch with your vendor after signing on the dotted line? 

We’ve heard horror stories of customers falling through the onboarding cracks at competitors. Or that they were unable to get ahold of anyone when they needed help adding a new plan, running a payout, or making a comp plan adjustment. Our response time is less than 90 seconds. Time us! We also offer sales compensation consulting at no additional cost to double-check your comp plan designs.

No minimum user limit

300 reps? Great. 4 reps? Also great.

QuotaPath doesn’t require a minimum number of users. Whether you’re a multi-continental, multi-product, multi-industry sales organization, or a startup with your first 2 reps, we got you.

Rep motivation

Find a solution that Finance, RevOps, and especially your Reps will love to use.

We created QuotaPath to help reps better understand their comp plans and when and how they get paid. Our user interface is easy to navigate so they can see their goals, accelerators, and bonuses, and how close they are to hitting those milestones. 

In-app communication

Can teams collaborate within the platform?

In early 2022, QuotaPath released Deal Flagging. This feature allows users to dispute any discrepancies that would immediately be escalated to an admin. Finance and Accounting can then address any questions within QuotaPath.

User Experience 

Think about how easy the solution would be to show someone on your team.

Our Director of Product said, “Our entire UX approach and philosophy focus on the idea that whatever we’re building shouldn’t require lots of training. We want our users to log in for the first time and already have a general understanding of how to use it.” 

Transparent pricing

How much does it cost and how easily can you find that out? We list our pricing upfront and directly on our website.

Let’s see if we’re a fit! Schedule time with our team, or get started with our free commission tracking software by signing up here.

If not, take this checklist to your next demo to make sure you’re getting exactly what you need. 

Big news! As of today, QuotaPath offers a native Copper CRM integration.

That’s right, the CRM applauded for its seamless experience and full functionality with Google Workspace has a new commission tool to offer its 30,000+ customers with QuotaPath. 

“A collaboration with Copper was a no-brainer given our shared focus on SMB/mid-market and product philosophies of simplicity and ease-of-use,” said QuotaPath Co-Founder Cole Evetts. “Now we can provide a solution to their customers for a problem every growth team experiences: automating commissions.”

With this integration, Copper users can feed deal data directly into QuotaPath to deliver revenue teams immediate access to their existing and future earnings, total annual recurring revenue, and attainment progress.

“We’re thrilled to announce our new QuotaPath integration and we’re excited for the efficiency and time savings it will offer Copper customers,” said Copper CEO Dennis Fois. “Managing sales commissions can be a manual and painful process, and this integration will bring greater visibility, ease, and organization to our sales, operations, and finance users.” 

Customers of both platforms are also eager.

“QuotaPath has been a great platform for our sales team, providing visibility and accuracy into our sales commissions and compensation process,” said PlaybookUX Co-Founder and CEO Lindsey Allard. “We are excited to use this integration, as it will save us even more time by providing a seamless experience between QuotaPath and our sales data in Copper CRM.”

Learn more about our latest **real-time integration below.

Ease of implementation

Both Copper and QuotaPath, two platforms that pride themselves on usability, can be implemented easily — hello, onboarded in less than 30 days! So, of course, when we built the integration, we made sure the sync would be just as simple (if not more).

How QuotaPath’s Native Copper integration works

• Connect to your source data
• Identify which records count toward earnings
• Map sales compensation plans with Copper
• CRM data from designated fields
• Define Deal stages to pull from Copper
• Preview mapping and input additional filters

Try the Copper integration with QuotaPath

Ready to automate sales commissions with compensation management software that users love to use? Wonderful, we’re ready to help!

Make your work-life easier by letting Copper and QuotaPath do the heavy lifting. Book a time with one of our friendly team members to learn more. In fact, once you schedule it, send your comp plan over and we’ll build it out in QuotaPath.

Not a Copper user? You should be! Their full CRM functionality directly in Gmail means no toggling between the two platforms, and we love their customer-relationship-first approach. To try Copper for free for 14 days, sign up here. 

About QuotaPath

QuotaPath automates the sales compensation process for scaling revenue teams. Our team of sales leaders and technology experts offers ​​sales compensation consulting to design plans that drive the right behaviors. Then, we help your team map these out in our platform to automate the entire process. With QuotaPath, give your reps and revenue leaders a tool to forecast commissions and attainment. Let them see real-time commission progress and calculations. Free your finance team from having to build out formulas and offer them a seamless pay approval experience for commissions. 

About Copper

Copper is the CRM of choice for Google Workspace businesses. Copper arms its users with collaboration tools and provides a user-friendly experience to help teams and businesses build long-lasting relationships. It is used across finance, marketing, and sales, automating tasks and statuses for today’s digital-first employees at small-to-medium size companies. Copper is Recommended for Google Workspace, and is used by over 30,000 paid businesses in more than 100 countries..=

** When we say “real-time” integration we mean it. No nightly refreshes. No delays. Enjoy instant access to your earnings potential!

Can you run QuickBooks commission tracking? Below, we introduce QuickBooks and its capabilities. But most importantly, we share how to use QuickBooks with QuotaPath’s commissions management solutions.

First, what does QuickBooks do? 

Launched in 1983, QuickBooks supports accounting and finance teams by automating processes, managing products and projects, and streamlining workflows. 

While initially set out to support the small and medium business sector, QuickBooks has scaled to support large enterprises, too. 

Speaking of enterprises, Intuit founded QuickBooks. This seats the fintech platform next to Intuit’s family of brands which includes TurboTax, Mint, Credit Karma, and Mail Chimp. The enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform can facilitate inventory tracking, invoicing, bill management, bookkeeping, timesheets, and lots more. Basically, all of the responsibilities of a standard accounting team can get a leg up with QuickBooks. 

However, one key accounting function that QuickBooks cannot do independently is automated sales commissions.

And that, my friends, is where we, another “Q” company, come into play.

Plus, you can log in to our free commission tracking software and work with a commission plan template, customize your own, or partner with us to design one aligned to your business model.

Build a Sales Funnel

Use our free sales funnel resource to see how many meetings your team needs to book to hit quota.

Calculate Now

Automating compensation

But that’s only the beginning. Our consultative comp planning efforts prepare your team for the actual automation of sales commission tracking and payments. 

Once your plans are ready, our team works with yours to build them out in QuotaPath. Through real-time integrations, our platform generates accurate and up-to-date deal and commission data. This enables users to quickly generate a sales commission report and get immediate insights into existing and forecasted earnings and attainment. 

Leaders can make adjustments easily to comp plans or users throughout the year, thanks to our system’s usability. And, thanks to the high backend technical work, our platform can manage almost any comp plan, regardless of its complexities.

Interested in connecting this platform with QuickBooks? See below!

Using QuotaPath with QuickBooks

Fans of both QuotaPath and QuickBooks can soon connect the two platforms for payouts eligibility.

This means that teams can configure commission payments based on variables set forth by the compensation plan.

Let’s say your plan pays 10% when the deal closes and the other 90 when the invoice comes in. QuotaPath can automate commission payouts accordingly. 

And, because we love transparency, those earning the commissions can go in as well to see when they get paid and how much.

Learn more about QuotaPath’s QuickBooks commission tracking

To learn more about QuotaPath’s commissions management services and compensation plan software, book a time with our team. Send over your comp plan ahead of the call, and we can build it out within the app for you.

For our QuickBooks fans, we’ll show you how QuotaPath will run QuickBooks commission tracking to ensure no commission check is inaccurate again.

QuotaPath’s Senior Director of RevOps Ryan Milligan originally published a version of “How to design sales compensation plans” with Pavilion. 

A good compensation plan is like anything in business: If you set it up in the right way, you’ll get results. This might sound counterintuitive, but the salary isn’t everything when it comes to building a productive sales team. Your approach to design sales compensation plans can increase revenue, decrease churn, and drive change with your customers. 

Competition is fierce for talent. There’s been up to a 15% bump in sales comp in the last year alone for sales positions. Companies aren’t getting much of a discount for hiring people who don’t work in New York or San Francisco. For companies that want to scale up rapidly, it’s important to meet salary expectations. 

Below, we’ll guide you through how to get there — from developing a business plan to aligning compensation to making it all simple and usable.

About the author

Ryan Milligan is the Senior Director of Revenue Operations at Quotapath. He previously led marketing and RevOps teams at Homebase and solved customer acquisition, revenue attribution, and customer segmentation problems as a member of Wayfair’s Data Science team.

Steps to building a compensation plan

To an extent, a sales compensation plan model represents a math problem. You can’t pay for more employees than your income allows. The goal, of course, is growth, and that can make it hard to project how much income you’ll have. You’ll want to be conservative in setting sales quotas, assuming your team will make around 80% of the planned goal. But you’ll also want to be aggressive to design compensation plans that prioritize and reward sales growth. To set up sales incentive compensation in a thoughtfully executed plan, follow these steps.

1. Understand and prioritize the goals for your business.

What are your goals? You can’t do everything, but you can target a business improvement or two through your compensation plan. Choose the behaviors you want to incentivize, and build your comp plan accordingly.

Driving increased top-line revenue.

How much time can your team afford to spend on outbound work, calling potential customers? And how much growth potential is there from your existing customers? You’ll want to make sure you’re incentivizing growth through designing compensation plans.

Decreasing churn. 

The fewer customers we lose to churn, the more money our company makes. A 5% increase in retention can mean a 25 to 95% increase in profits, according to a Harvard Business School report. It pays to keep customers happy and reward salespeople for keeping their business in-house.

Expanding revenue from existing customers. 

Have a sales compensation system in place to encourage opportunities with customers you already have. Reps should look at if customers subscribe to all your services. Could they benefit from a more in-depth relationship? Encourage your reps to upsell with the right incentives. 

Selling new products/product lines to customers. 

This entails outreach, both to new and existing customers. You don’t know the answer if you’re not talking to your people. Incentivize your reps to talk with customers regularly and discover what they’re missing. 

Driving change within existing customers 

How are you getting paid by existing customers? There could be an opportunity to convert monthly contracts to annual or move annual deals to multi-year agreements. Incentive compensation management that rewards your reps for these conversions will drive these behaviors.

2. Understand who you have on your team and how success is measured for each of them

Now that you’ve outlined your business goals, think about what you want each team member to do. It’s more than pie-in-the-sky thinking. Sales teams have crossover responsibilities. Be clear about what you expect from each position and be clear about how they get compensated for their work.

Sales development reps

Sales development representatives (SDR) and business development representatives (BDR) often have nearly identical job descriptions. While the roles vary, they’re typically focused on finding new customers or starting sales to existing customers. These usually involve entry-level positions. Responsibilities include:

• Doing homework. An SDR or BDR will research prospects and verify their contact information.
• Reaching out to prospects. It’s their job to start the ball rolling by cold-calling, emailing, or messaging through LinkedIn.
• Qualifying leads. They are essentially asked to make sure the prospects are real and valuable before moving to the next step.
• Booking meetings. Typically, the last step for an SBR or BDR is setting up a meeting with an account executive. 

One important thing to consider here. Are these employees at all involved in the sales process? It’s important to reward them with commissions if they’re doing more than setting up meetings. We recommend SDR comp plans that include incentive pay for qualified opportunities and the amount of revenue on closed/won opps that come from them.

Account executives

Account executives have more wide-ranging job responsibilities. At companies without SBR and BDR, account executives are “full-cycle,” meaning they handle every aspect of the sales transaction. Here’s what additional duties account executives have:

• Run demos. Show the product in action and how it can soothe companies’ pain points.
• Sign up new accounts / book revenue. This is simple enough: they’re responsible for closing the deal. 

A typical sales commission structure for an AE will include measures that incentivize overperformance and decentivize underperformance, such as decelerators, accelerators, and multi-year kickers. 

A few other points you should consider: Do you have a full-cycle sales team? Are AEs at all responsible for the post-signature onboarding? Do you have a quick-churn issue? The toughest transition point in churn is getting customers on board and happy with your product. More than ever, business is about relationships. Since your new customers know the salesperson, it often makes sense for them to be involved in the handoff to an account manager.

Account managers

Account managers run the show after the contracts are signed. They represent the face of your company, as far as your clients are concerned. It’s more than customer service, it’s also about keeping customers with your business for the long haul. Account manager responsibilities include: 

• Onboard new customers. The transition from sales to actual use of the product can be tricky. This part of the post-sale is crucial. 
• Get customers actively using the product. This is about keeping customers happy in the long run.
• Expand revenue from existing customers. Account managers are excellent resources for your company because they get to know customers, see their needs, and identify solutions your company can help with.
• Decrease churn. As the face of your company, your account manager’s job is to keep customers happy with your product.

AM comp plans usually entail a base salary plus commission structure with a set commission rate for upsells. 

3. Determine target total compensation for each team member

The Betts Compensation Guide is a great place to start to design sales compensation plans. It’s free to sign up for and provides data for the largest tech markets in the country. The key points to know: Salaries are going up, with average starting pay hitting $50,000 in the 2022 guide. And, instead of reps in New York and San Francisco making tons more, costs have started flattening as remote work becomes the norm.

4. Determine target earnings

The formula here is simple. Determine what you want the annual salary to be for each sales team member, then split the pay by base pay and commissions, or variable compensation. For instance, if $140,000 is the goal for an account executive, and SDR and account executives typically get paid 50% base and 50% variable, the annual salary would be $70,000 with $70,000 of expected variable compensation. Account managers work on a 65/35 ratio, or sometimes 70/30. Figure out what works best for your company.

5. Determine a quota for your sales team

Next, use the QuotaPath Quota:OTE calculator to determine what a healthy annual quota is for an account executive based on their total earnings. Look at your financial plan, expected quota attainment, and on-target earnings (OTE) on a per-rep basis to calculate how many reps you will need to hit your financial plan.

Let’s work with a real example. 

Suppose your company wants to close on $400,000 in new business each quarter. Each account executive has an OTE of $100,000 per year ($50,000 in base, $50,000 variable). Set the rep quota at $400,000 annually (four times the quota-to-OTE ratio from our calculator). That’s a healthy range for a business with less than $1 million a year in annual recurring revenue – and that quota is $100K per rep, per quarter. Estimate 80% quota attainment across your team. That means you’re expecting to close $80,000 per rep, per quota. That means you’ll need five reps to close $400,000 in new business per quarter. 

6. Give team members visibility into their compensation

Lastly, everybody on your sales team will value transparency. 

Using a tool like QuotaPath, you can sync your deals live from your customer relationship management (CRM) software to give reps real-time visibility into commissions calculations. Reps can also forecast what they will earn if they close other deals in their pipeline. The team can proactively flag payroll discrepancies before you pay them, leading to fewer hassles when it’s time to run payroll. 

The signing of the deal marks the start of the customer relationship in sales. Similarly, rolling out a compensation plan sets the beginning of your financial relationship with your employees. Stay plugged in so you can make adjustments should any problems arise and adapt to changes in your market.

Countless hours of research. Sales training after sales training. You’re actively perfecting your demo, editing your sales email template, and finetuning your cold call script. You’re even bantering like a seasoned pro. But none of that matters if you’re pouring time and energy into trying to convert somebody who isn’t even the decision maker.

Learning what to say to decision-makers is only half the battle. First, you have to figure out who the decision maker really is. And you may be surprised to find that the person you’re talking to has no power at all.

The best ways to identify the right decision maker

Trying to identify whether you’re chatting with a decision maker or just another cog in the wheel? Use these criteria to evaluate how much power your contact really has.

They show understanding of the buying process

In most cases, your pitch or demo won’t be the decision maker’s first rodeo. That means they should be on top of what’s next in the buying process. An inexperienced person might not be familiar with what goes into solidifying a deal. Talking to someone who seems ready to sign a hefty contract the first time you connect might be exciting at first. But in reality, that signifies a faux decision maker who is likely to get overruled by the real one.

A decision maker will answer key questions

Decision makers are willing to answer questions integral to the buying process. They want a good deal but also one that’s targeted to their unique needs. That requires due diligence on your part, including asking a lot of questions about timeline, budget, etc.

Real decision-makers also know the answers to questions they should get all the time. And they’ll have those answers on the tip of their tongue because it’s their job to know their organization from the inside out.

Those questions may include:

1. What is your business’s unique value proposition?
2. Who will be using the product?
3. What’s your goal? (Should be quantifiable, like a percentage increase in a particular metric)
4. Are there stakeholders or other people of interest who would be directly affected by this purchase?
5. What was the last product you bought in this category? Who bought it?
6. What were your objections/challenges with that purchase, and how do you want this purchase to be different?
7. What steps are involved in your internal purchasing process?

They ask closing questions

As important as your questions are, questions from the prospect may be even more critical. A true decision maker wants information. Even C-level executives usually have to answer to partners, a board or stockholders. They can’t unilaterally accept or deny your sales proposal based on pure gut feeling. Instead, they ask questions.

You’ll know you’re likely dealing with a decision maker if they ask questions like:

1. How quickly can we get onboarded?
2. Can we conduct our own trials?
3. What is your customer service plan like?
4. How does the package price change if we alter the length of the contract?
5. One of our challenges is XXX. How does your product offer a viable solution?

They don’t defer to others

Decision makers may need to answer to other people for their decisions, but they don’t have to get approval. Someone who says, “I need to talk to my boss,” isn’t going to give you a yes or no. The same goes for someone who says, “I need to get the okay before we go any further.” People who need help deciding probably aren’t the ones you should be pitching in the first place.

Yes, many organizations have gatekeepers but identify those players early on. Then, ask outright when the conversation should move to those with more decision-making power. It’s as easy as saying, “Are there other people who should be involved in this decision?” Imagine you’re talking to an assistant, and you know their boss has the key to the kingdom. There’s a way to diplomatically suggest they join the call. “I know Ms. Adamson will be hands-on with the roll-out and oversee the software long-term. Should we schedule her on the next call so that we can cover her questions as well?”

The decision maker offers feedback

Decision makers are professionals. Unless a pitch really tanks, the first call isn’t the end of the conversation. Pros will ask for information, pore over the materials you send, and have questions they need answered before considering the deal further. For that reason, expect real decision makers to be willing to schedule additional time for feedback after the initial call.

If you start a pitch and get wishy-washy objections like, “I’m not sure we need this” or “I think this is out of budget,” that’s a red flag. Decision makers know there are layers to every deal, and they’re willing to invest in uncovering them.

Once you identify the decision maker, it’s time to go for the close. To hone your skills, check out these top sales podcasts that will help you access new tools and learn from industry examples.

About QuotaPath

QuotaPath’s sales compensation system automates commission tracking for revenue and finance teams while proving reps with a sales forecast template. This functionally motivates reps and allows them to see how their pipeline translates into earnings. To see how QuotaPath’s sales incentive software can simplify your process with accurate, real-time, and trusted earnings data, book a time to chat with our team.

PS: Send over a sample compensation plan ahead of the call, and we’ll build it out for you in the app.

It’s been nearly three months since I last gave an update regarding the market downturn. Since then, some tech companies, QuotaPath included, have started to see rebounds. For other organizations, however, conditions have worsened.

Shopify, for instance, added to 2022’s 30,000 tech layoffs after announcing 1,000 layoffs this week. Boosted Commerce and Outbrain also cut ties with 5 percent and 3 percent of their workforce, respectively. 

Economists and industry analysts like Billionaire investor Jim Coulter say we’re only through the first of three phases of this year’s unofficial recession.

But this isn’t a doomsday post. Quite the opposite, actually.

As leaders, rather than making siloed decisions internally, let’s share what we found out after evaluating Q2 misses. Let’s help one another prepare to take on what Coulter has called the next two phases of the downturn, and come out of this stronger and smarter together. 

Now, what you need to know is that my 80% bar differs from what other sales teams say. Others set an 80% target that translates to the sales team attaining 80% of their quota over the year. 

My 80% rule is that 8 out of 10 sellers should hit their quota. This perspective promotes consistency across the entire team. 

When that didn’t happen in Q2, this indicated that we needed to restructure our GTM strategy at the team level as well as at the sales compensation level.

Here’s what we did:

Structure to strengths

First, we looked into how we segment our top of funnel (TOFU) inbound leads and how we could do it better.

For instance, some leads come in with no special requests, while others require enterprise support, complex compensation needs, ASC-606 compliance, or specific integrations. So as demands come in, how could we create immediate value for them?

The solution involved restructuring our sales team to their strengths and changing up roles accordingly. An example, one of our reps who has an incredible understanding of the technical suite within QuotaPath became a solutions engineer. In his new role, he can get involved in the sales cycles early on with reps who could benefit from having his expertise on the call.

Additionally, we created sales development roles (SDRs) to move the marketing qualified lead (MQL) process more efficiently. This has led to faster response times from the point of immediate interest conducted by a rep who has an exceptional understanding of our value add as well as the outbound motion. Our goal is to better quality our MQLs and move them faster through the funnel. Already, we’ve seen success. 

Adjusting compensation plans

Secondly, we reviewed our commission plan. 

What I’ve observed in my experience, is that companies are quick to cut low-performing sales reps in lieu of evaluating their sales commission structure. 

Admittedly, our Quota:OTE ratio was a bit out of whack. So, we used our own Quota:OTE calculator to readjust it so that we can get to that 80% attainment bar. 

This, paired with a transparent communication plan that kept everyone in the know and showed the data for our changes kept momentum and attitudes up.

So what is there to learn here? 

Admit your weaknesses and lean into your team’s strengths. Build a culture and positions that align to those strengths. Look into compensation and see where you can make changes and demonstrate clearly to your team why those changes are being made. Honesty goes a long way.

The team will respect your changes a lot more than if you can’t explain the “why” behind it.

If you need assistance reviewing your plans or creating new opportunities for your sales team within your organization, please reach out (aj@quotapath.com). The more we support one another right now, the better the industry will be in the future.

Now, on to the second month of a better Q3. Let’s go!