According to several sources, Q4 is when more SaaS deals are closed than any other quarter. However, it’s also one of the toughest times to close deals due to Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years and all the associated time off and travel.

We want you to blow out your quota in Q4 so you can avoid a stressful holiday season, so we asked a few sales experts their take on how to prevent deals from stalling during the holidays. We asked all of these experts the same question:

How do you prevent deals from stalling during the holidays?

Emily Zipp, Enterprise Account Executive at WeWork, believes that planning is key:

Two ways!

1. Create an internal Deal Closing Checklist and include EVERYTHING that needs to happen to get a deal done. Include things like Legal review, IT review, final presentations, and anything that is part of your closing process to bring a deal across the finish line. Don’t skimp, be thorough!
2. Once you’ve created your Deal Closing Checklist, create a customer-facing version that you can present to your client and use it as a Mutual Action Plan (MAP). Hold them accountable for what they need to get done, and use generous timelines so that you add in plenty of buffer room for things to go wrong. An especially helpful thing to do around the holidays is to use the MAP as an opportunity to ask all stakeholders involved in closing a deal what their travel schedules are, and to include those dates in your Mutual Action Plan.

Sebastian Cañizares, Cloud Account Executive at MongoDB, stresses you should ask questions about your opportunities now before it’s too late:

There are 3 must’s to prevent deals from stalling during the holidays that have worked for me:

1. Understand the process for signature once the basics (cost, features, etc.) have been agreed upon. You will run into many instances where everything has been set in stone but you were unaware that the procurement office is the final approval and they are out for half of November and December.
2. Know the Decision Maker/Economic Buyer/Procurement Team’s holiday schedules! Are they going to be out of town visiting their families? Are they finally taking that month-long trip to the Bahamas? Will they be in the office for some days or working from home? I’ve worked deals on New Year’s day where we knew that the final signer had a holiday party that would take her out of the office early that day. Without knowing that, we may have not gotten the contract over in time to reach her before she left midday… Start figuring this out now (before the Holidays), not later!
3. Build your internal champion and stay top of mind with light-hearted holiday material. Stay top of mind during the holidays, send them a personal note/card wishing them Happy Holidays. Send them your company’s holiday marketing material. Think of creative ways to get them to open up your email/outreach. Stand out, especially as they get bogged down with Consumer Marketing holiday emails. Make sure that if you are in an active deal cycle, every time they open up their email you are at the top of it and your email subject line is catchy.

Brittney Stinner, Account Executive at Rapid7, also thinks that planning and mutual accountability is important to getting deals done:

One of my most consistent practices in keeping deals from stalling is to collaborate with my prospects on a Joint Project Plan. This document is a mutually agreed-upon plan with key steps that must be met to successfully implement your product or service. This will help quickly identify what obstacles lie ahead and keep the prospect accountable to the timeline they originally agreed to. Plus, if you have tied the close-date to one of their initiatives, then you can easily reference how potential delays put their own initiative at risk. The key is making sure both parties are contributing to what that path to implementation looks like!

Also, be sure you ask early on whether your point of contact or any decision-makers (and contract signers!) will be traveling… and be mindful of those dates.

AJ Bruno, CEO at QuotaPath, thinks that it’s all about bringing a positive attitude into the month:

I love telling salespeople on my team that “people LOVE doing deals on Friday. Everyone is in a happy mood and it is closer to the weekend. Things just get done.” Now imagine that you have a whole month of Fridays! That is why the end of the year (specifically December) is the best. If you go into the month with the right attitude, deals just DON’T stall in December. This has held true for me going into every single Q4. We would always look at our pipeline and just say “This is going to get done by Dec 12th because our contact surely doesn’t want to be in the office on December 29th at 4 pm getting contracts signed so their budget doesn’t go away”. Understand that is your reality and go into the month with a positive attitude and the rest will take care of itself.

Don’t let your deals stall this holiday season. Finish the year strong with QuotaPath. Sign up for free today!

Now that we’ve set the quota for SDRs, it’s time to talk about how to set their bonus and commission rates.

Before we dive in, let’s define some terms:

Commission: a percentage of some other number (usually revenue) that you earn. Do you receive some percentage of every deal you bring in? If so, that’s a commission.

Bonus: a flat value you earn for doing something. Do you earn some set amount of money for hitting your quota, hitting revenue milestones, or for every meeting you set? If so, that’s a bonus.

Commission Types

• Single rate commission: The simplest form of commission is the single rate commission. This means that you earn a set % of your sales, regardless of your quota attainment.
• Multiple rate commission: Multiple rate commissions change depending on some variable. The most traditional multiple rate commission is an accelerator that increases your commission rate when you hit your quota.

Bonus Types

• Single rate bonus: Much like a single rate commission, single rate bonuses are very simple. You get paid a specific amount for completing some action. These are more common for non-revenue producing roles, but examples might be earning a flat $500 for closing any deal or earning a bonus for every new logo you close.
• Multiple rate bonus: Again, similar to a multiple rate commission, a multiple rate bonus means that the amount you earn for completing an action changes depending on some other variable like quota attainment.
• Milestone bonus: Milestone bonuses are bonuses you earn for hitting some achievement. For example, you could earn $500 for making 1,000 dials in a month. If you make 999 dials? No bonus. If you make 2,000 dials, you still earn just the $500.

So how do you actually set a bonus and commission rate? Well, once you have your On-Target Earnings (OTE) and quota figured out, you need to determine the weight of each of their quotas on their variable pay. A good rule of thumb is to not tie more than 25% of SDRs’ variable pay on revenue, so we’ll say 75% of their variable pay is earned through demo setting and 25% is earned through revenue generation. From there, it’s fairly simple to work backward. Continuing the example from this blog post, let’s say we have a 20 demo/month and $36k/month revenue quota, an OTE of $72k broken into $40k base and $32k variable. In that example, 75% of the $32k/year would be $24k/year or $2k/month. If you’re paying a flat rate per demo, that would be $100 per demo.

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However, if you want to incentivize overperformance, you could add an accelerator past 100%. I recommend having your accelerators apply to all demos for the month to add an extra incentive. So maybe you’d want to have your reps earn $100 for every demo up to quota, but once quota has been achieved, they earn $120 for every demo held that month. We’ve seen as many as 100 different earnings tiers, but we recommend sticking with 4 max.

Then if you’re paying 25% of their variable pay on their revenue generated, that would be $12k/year or $1k/month. At a quota of $36k/month, that would be 2.77% of any revenue they generate. I’m a fan of round commission percentages personally, so I’d round it to an even 3%.

At the end of the day, you’ll have to play around with all the numbers and find something that works for your organization.

For additional resources designing SDR comp plans, visit our free tool Compensation Hub. Explore SDR compensation plan examples, customize them to your business, and save and share with your team.

Interviewing for a job at a new company may make you feel like you’re under a magnifying glass. When your experience, skills, and personality are being scrutinized, it’s easy to forget that job interviews are a two-way street. Yes, you want to present yourself in the best light, but that’s not the end of the story; you’re also there to determine whether this company is where you want to invest your time, energy, and talent for the next several years.

With that in mind, what kinds of things should you be looking for to decide whether a company will be a good fit for you and your career goals? Here are a few questions you may want to ask about the company and the role before you accept a sales job:

What does success look like in this company?

This question, on its face, may seem like it has an obvious answer: someone who hits high numbers. But what that looks like in practice may be a completely different story.

Ask your interviewers what comes to mind when they think of their highest-performing sales reps. What kind of person is most suited to the work? What personality and character traits to the most successful sales reps at this company have in common? What habits or skillsets do top performers share? When you know what kind of people have been most successful in this role in the past, you’ll be able to gauge how closely you match that profile.

What does the comp plan look like?

In any sales job, there’s some degree of uncertainty about how much the final take-home pay for the year will be. That’s why it’s so important to know the details of how your pay will be calculated, and how accurate the quoted on-target earnings are.

In addition to finding out the specifics of the company’s compensation plan, ask your interviewer to tell you what percentage of reps have hit their quotas in the past six months. Ideally, about 80% of sales reps can hit their goals within a given period. If 90% of reps at this company only hit 50% of their quota, partial quota attainment may be considered normal in this organization. Knowing whether the company sets reasonable sales quotas will help you get a better idea of what kind of pay you should realistically expect.

What does a typical day look like for sales reps here?

This question may feel like a cliche, but it’s an important one to ask; it will clue you in about what will be expected of you. It’s common for a sales rep to imagine that they’ll spend their days doing demos and closing deals, only to be disappointed when they find that much of their day involves cold calls and other outreach tactics. Sales processes can look vastly different between companies; it’s a good idea to have a realistic picture of what a job entails before accepting it.

What’s the relationship between sales reps and their managers?

In the best sales organizations, managers are a great resource for their reps, offering ongoing coaching and helping new hires get up to speed on product knowledge. In practice, though, some managers are much more hands-off, only interacting with salespeople when they have numbers to report. Ask what you should expect from your manager so you can make sure you’re ending up in a supportive environment.

What does a career trajectory look like in this company?

The interviewers’ answer to this question should reveal several things to you at once. For one, you’ll be able to learn about how salespeople become eligible for promotions, which will tell you whether or not the company is committed to promoting from within the organization. At early-stage startups, this may not be particularly well-defined, but ideally your interviewers will be able to tell you the company’s general philosophy on whether they hire management externally or from inside the company.

The other important information this question should reveal is the average tenure of an employee in the sales organization. A high turnover rate (meaning employees leave after a short time at the company) could indicate that sales goals aren’t realistic and/or that reps aren’t given the support they need to be successful in the organization.

How is the company performing overall?

Through your research before an interview, you may have been able to find some of this information. But giving your interviewers a chance to answer this question can reveal their level of confidence in the company’s ability to perform in the future. Specifically, you’ll want to know whether the company is growing month over month and quarter over quarter, and how well the company is expanding and innovating in the industry.

Get your career on the right path

There are a lot of variables to consider before deciding to take your skills and experience to a new organization. Whether you’ll be compensated fairly, how well the company is positioned for growth, and what kind of culture you’re getting into are all things to think about seriously when making your decision. By asking these exploratory questions in a job interview, you should be able to get a better idea of whether or not the role and the company will put you on the path to the career you want.

Want an easier way to track your progress and project your earnings? Great news! With QuotaPath’s simplified commission and attainment tracking, you can spend less time juggling spreadsheets and more time closing deals. Sign up for free.

Experts in every profession have their preferred tools to help them work better and faster, and sales is no different. While it’s true that a lot of success in sales comes down to the ability to wield experience and finely-tuned skills to make a compelling case for a purchase, having access to the right tools doesn’t hurt, either.

Whether they’re meant to help you stay organized, provide you with insights about your potential customers, or help you contact people easily, the software tools you use on the job can serve as power-ups to complement your skills.

We reached out to a few sales reps to find out what kinds of software and tools they use to help them do their jobs well. Here are the kinds of tools they told us are essential for them to make the most of their time, stay organized, and close more deals:

General communication and organizational tools

With more sales reps working remotely or communicating with people across the country (or the world!) as part of their jobs every day, dependable communication tools are a must. Many of the salespeople we talked to named communication tools like Slack and Zoom as key to their day-to-day work functions. Using messaging tools like Slack, sales pros are able to collaborate and quickly check in with colleagues. Zoom and other video conferencing tools are useful for giving presentations or demos, regardless of geographical distance.

Nearly every person we talked to also mentioned Google Calendar, Google Docs, or the G-Suite as a whole as essential tools for getting work done. While these tools aren’t sales-specific— almost anyone whose job involves working in front of a computer will use these most days— they are certainly useful in helping salespeople organize their days and maximize their productivity. According to Sebastian, an account exec: “[The G-Suite] is easy to use, and it provides multiple basic tools (sheets, docs, notes, list building, calendar) and cross-functionality (mobile and desktop).”

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools

CRMs are a fact of life for most sales reps, whether they enjoy using them or not. These tools provide a central location for businesses to store prospect and customer data and keep track of all interactions leading up to a sale.

There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of CRMs available for sales teams to use, but the two most commonly mentioned by the sales reps we talked to were Salesforce and HubSpot, which offer integrations with other useful tools, such as sales intelligence and engagement platforms.

Sales intelligence platforms

Many sales operations in the past depended on manual prospecting tasks like cold calling to get a feel for where to focus their efforts. Fortunately, modern sales forces have resources at their disposal that let them work smarter, not harder.

Using sales intelligence platforms like Guru, Clearbit, InsightSquared, LeadIQ, and others, salespeople can quickly access information about prospects, manage pipelines, and make more accurate forecasts— all tasks that would have required significant investments of time a decade ago. Most of these tools are used in conjunction with a CRM to power up contact records with more in-depth information.

According to sales development rep Eric: “I use these in my day-to-day activities every day of the week. It’s not a ‘nice to have’; they directly impact how I get leads.”

Sales engagement platforms

Time is a limited resource for everyone these days; nobody has time to waste on tasks that don’t move the ball forward meaningfully. That’s why sales engagement tools like Outreach.io, Salesloft, and Yesware came up as useful power-ups for the sales reps we talked to.

These platforms all offer their own unique combination of features, but the unifying idea is the same: they all aim to help salespeople get a better idea of which activities are most effective so they can prioritize them and close more sales. They can also help sales reps quickly personalize and automate written communication with prospects, allowing them to reach more people in less time.

According to account exec Isaac, “These tools are extremely powerful for organizing data in a logical way, with user interfaces that are intuitive and easy-to-use. Whether that data organization involves messages, training/sales collateral, or outbound emails, my favorite tools are ones that let me automate manual processes and focus on strategic problem-solving.”

Sales performance management

Even with all these other tools at your disposal, your efforts can become unfocused if you’re not aware of what’s working and what isn’t. That’s one reason it’s so important to have a good idea of where you stand on the path toward your goals. But juggling an ad hoc system of self-made spreadsheets to keep yourself on track is not just onerous and unappealing, it’s also a huge strain on your already-tight schedule.

That’s where QuotaPath comes in. With our attractive and easy-to-use platform, you can forecast your attainment and compensation in real-time, visualize how your performance changes over time, and stay motivated to reach your sales goals… all without putting together a single spreadsheet. Oh yeah, and it’s free to use, today and forever.

Ready to learn more or try it for yourself? Get started today.

Now that we’ve set the quota for a salesperson, it’s time to talk about how to set commission rates. In the past, our CEO AJ Bruno wrote about his favorite comp plan but that’s far from the only option you have.

Before we dive in, let’s define some terms:

Commission: a percentage of some other number (usually revenue) that you earn. Do you receive some percentage of every deal you bring in? If so, that’s a commission.

Bonus: a flat value you earn for doing something. Do you earn some set amount of money for hitting your quota, hitting revenue milestones, or for every meeting you set? If so, that’s a bonus.

Commission Types

• Single rate commission: The simplest form of commission is the single rate commission. This means that you earn a set % of your sales, regardless of your quota attainment.
• Multiple rate commission: Multiple rate commissions change depending on some variable. The most traditional multiple rate commission is an accelerator that increases your commission rate when you hit your quota.

Bonus Types

• Single rate bonus: Much like a single rate commission, single rate bonuses are very simple. You get paid a specific amount for completing some action. These are more common for non-revenue producing roles, but examples might be earning a flat $500 for closing any deal or earning a bonus for every new logo you close.
• Multiple rate bonus: Again, similar to a multiple rate commission, a multiple rate bonus means that the amount you earn for completing an action changes depending on some other variable like quota attainment.
• Milestone bonus: Milestone bonuses are bonuses you earn for hitting some achievement. For example, you could earn $500 for making 1,000 dials in a month. If you make 999 dials? No bonus. If you make 2,000 dials, you still earn just the $500.

So how do you actually set a commission rate? Well, once you have your On-Target Earnings (OTE) and quota figured out, it’s fairly simple to work backward. Continuing the example from this blog post, let’s say we have a $50k/month quota, an OTE of $120k broken into $60k base and $60k commission. In that example, a flat rate commission would be 10%. That comes from: $60,000 annual commission / 12 months = $5,000 OTE per month and $5,000 OTE per month / $50,000 quota per month = 10% commission.

However, if you want to incentivize overperformance, you could add an accelerator past 100%. I recommend having your accelerators apply to all sales for the month to add an extra incentive. So maybe you’d want to have your reps earn 10% of anything up to quota, but once quota has been achieved, they earn 12% of anything they’ve sold that month. We’ve seen as many as 100 different earnings tiers, but we recommend sticking with 4 max.

Another option would be to add a milestone bonus for hitting your monthly quota, encouraging consistency. An example would be a $1,000 bonus for hitting your monthly quota, which would drop your commission rate to 8% while leaving OTE the exact same.

At the end of the day, you’ll have to play around with all the numbers and find something that works for your organization. It was mentioned at the beginning of this post, but if you’re looking for a simple and effective first plan, you can’t go wrong with this plan from our CEO, AJ Bruno.

As new tools make the world more interconnected, inside sales has gained momentum over traditional outside sales. In fact, today’s busy and hyper-educated buyers want to engage virtually in almost 75% of sales situations. Taking the prospecting process online and using tactics like virtual conferencing help inside sales reps engage leads instantly and achieve higher quotas than they would have been able to a decade ago.

There’s no time like the present to land a great inside sales job. But before you send over a standard resume and email, here are four strategies to help you position yourself for a transition into an inside sales career.

Bring on your energy

Successful inside reps should be able to engage prospects through email and phone as well as outside reps can close deals in person. The secret? Enthusiasm. Inside sales reps have to maintain their positivity and energy to captivate prospects and motivate people, despite any setbacks and rejection they may face.

In an interview for an inside sales job, keep your head held high and show off your energy and enthusiasm about the work. Employers will want to work with someone who’s excited about what they do, and who can rally others to feel the same.

Know the product

The best inside sales reps know their product inside and out. When customers have objections and questions, a deep knowledge of your product will allow you to take control of the conversation and convey confidence about what you’re selling.

Make sure you’re well-versed on how the product is made, how it can be used, and what technology stacks work well together. The ability to knock out demos and follow up with useful product info will help you move more deals down your sales pipeline (and impress your boss)!

Connect with insiders

Sales reps tend to be an outgoing bunch, so there are generally plenty of opportunities to network or meet people in the field. It’s a great idea to expand your network and connect with sales reps at local meetup groups or conferences. Make sure you come prepared with your business card and time for several conversations—you never know who will refer you to their company in the future.

Networking with existing inside sales reps at a company you’re interested in allows you to do reconnaissance. Instead of relying on conversations with recruiters or sales managers, knowing people in the role you’re trying to land can help you get a better idea of how to position yourself. Reach out to sales reps who are on the floor to get a sense of what they need and how you can demonstrate that you’d be a good fit. Face-to-face time talking to inside sales reps about their successes and challenges can be really helpful when the time comes for an interview.

Do your homework

It’s never a good idea to apply for a position or walk into an interview without having done your research. You should be familiar with company and industry leaders, what they’re doing, and what makes them successful. Take a few minutes to visit the LinkedIn profile of your interviewers so you can ask them questions about their work experience. When most employers have access to information online, it’s also a good idea to groom your digital profile; make sure you include quantifiable achievements and results.

Finally, articulate why you want the job and how you can contribute to the company’s success. Decision makers remember those who show them persistence and purpose instead of just telling them what they want to hear.

Pave your journey to success

Landing an inside sales career is a great opportunity for growth and development. Taking steps like the ones mentioned above can help you freshen up your knowledge and skills and prepare you for a career in a dynamic field.

Once you land your dream gig, use these 5 expert-tips from SalesRight to become a master sales executive.

With a powerful all-in-one platform to measure your performance, track critical metrics, manage your pipeline, and motivate you to hit your sales goals, it’s easier to pave your journey to success. Try it for free today.

When you’re just starting a career in sales, the amount of information being thrown your way might make you feel like you’re drinking from a firehose. Between the company-specific product knowledge you need to learn, the advice from well-meaning friends and colleagues, and the ever-growing number of books or seminars that claim to hold the secret to a successful career, it’s easy to burn out before you’ve even gotten started.

So how can you sift through it all and determine which advice will actually help you reach your sales goals? How do you know who to listen to— and who to tune out?

We know there’s a lot of less-than-helpful information out there about how to become better at your job. That’s why we’ve put together a condensed primer with practical advice to help you learn how to develop your sales career. We’ve included lessons some of our own veteran salespeople have learned throughout their careers, as well as some advice from thought leaders we trust.

In this resource, we’ve included answers to some of your most pressing sales questions, with advice on topics such as:

• How to decide whether or not a sales job will be the right fit for you
• How to evaluate a compensation plan before accepting a sales job
• How you can improve your first outreach to set yourself up for success
• What to include in a follow-up email (and what to leave out)
• What resources are worthwhile to help you continue to advance your career

Sound useful? We thought so. Head on over to our resource page to learn more about what skills you’ll need to develop your sales career.

Congratulations on choosing to explore the opportunities of a career in sales, how exciting! A sales career will offer you constant, unique challenges and put you in charge of your own success. Plus, the sales department is typically one of the highest paid departments in a company.

Whether you’re just starting to think about a career in sales, or you’re eyeing that open Sales Manager position, we’re here to help you understand the lay of the land. Here’s a glimpse into our free guide to help you navigate various paths, set career goals, and build the career you want.

Choose the right role

Let’s take a look at a few of the most common sales roles, what’s involved in each one and what kind of skills are needed to succeed.

We’ll start with a sales development representative (sometimes called a market, business or lead development representative or a lead generation specialist). These reps are in charge of researching, finding and reaching out to new prospects and qualifying them for other sales reps. It’s not uncommon to include quite a bit of cold calling, so someone who is personable and organized is likely to succeed in this role.

An inside sales role is a great place to start for those transitioning from an SDR role to a sales job. There’s plenty of opportunity to grow by working closely and learning from sales managers and more seasoned reps. Inside sales reps work in an office and sell remotely, so you should have strong technical skills, rounded product knowledge, and feel comfortable using customer management (CRM) software.

The counterpart to an inside sales rep is the outside sales rep or, field sales rep. Out in the “field,” these reps focus on building relationships face-to-face. Someone who thrives on personal interaction, uncertain situations, and can self-manage and organize will be successful in this role.

Last but not least, there’s the sales manager. As the title suggests, they’re in charge of managing the performance and day-to-day activities of sales professionals, including SDRs and sales reps. To be a sales manager, it’s best to have a few years of experience under your belt. You’ll need to have strong communication and analytical skills since it’s important to evaluate your team’s performance and identify what they need to be successful. Their success will be yours as well.

Once you made your choice it’s time for you to find that perfect job. Luckily employment sites like Jooble offer a variety of opportunities in any field.

Understand your compensation

If you didn’t already know, here at QuotaPath, we’re self-identified sales nerds. We live and breathe sales compensation plans. Here are a few key components we believe make a good compensation plan:

1. Simple enough it can fit on the back of a napkin, which means no more than 3 variable components.
2. Set realistic goals that are ambitious yet achievable. (Sales reps thrive off challenge and competition after all.)
3. Correct ratio of quota to on-target earnings (OTE). If you’re just starting your career generally somewhere in the 20-25% range is ideal.

Beware, there are terrible plans out there. A few red flags to look out for when reviewing compensation plans are any moving targets, a high clawback rate, and 100% commission jobs (unless you’re working in real estate or auto sales).

The good news here? QuotaPath is equipped to manage all kinds of plans — from the good ones to the not-so-good ones. It’s free to use too, so sign up to start calculating your earnings today.

Map your career goals

The beginning of your career is all about trying different things and discovering what you like, and equally important, what you dislike. To map your career goals, ask yourself questions like:

• What aspects of your current job do you find most satisfying?
• What skills do you have that aren’t being put to use in your current role?
• What would be your ideal job situation in one year?

Answer those questions, then make a plan on how to make changes that will make you happier and potentially more successful as a result.

You might imagine you’ll feel more confident and secure after a few years, but that’s not always the case. People with ten, twenty or even fifty years of work can be just as unsure of the next steps as they were at the beginning of their careers. Check-in with yourself regularly about the state of your career to avoid getting stuck in a rut. Your goals will shift over time, since life goes on and priorities are constantly changing and evolving.

Did you find this information helpful? It’s all inspired by our guide, How to Build the Sales Career You Want. Download the free guide to get even more great content.

For those who work in sales, one of the most important aspects of your job is your commissions. We’ve learned in a previous post that there are various types of commissions such as flat-rate or fixed. Because commissions are likely a part of many sales folk’s total compensations, it’s important to understand them and how they work.

Most sales reps have their own way of tracking their commissions to ensure that they are getting paid what they worked for–there’s nothing more frustrating than getting shortchanged on a paycheck because you didn’t understand your commissions. Today we look at three of the most common ways that salespeople track their commissions and when to use which method.

Best way to track commissions

What’s the best way to track commissions? That depends. Some people prefer calculating commissions manually (like on a Post-it or in your head). But that only works for specific cases. The best time to calculate a sales commission manually is when it is a super simple commission plan and very few deals. For example, if you have a commission plan that earns you a 10% commission on every sale, you can probably do some quick mental math.

While tracking commissions manually is great for simple compensation plans, it can get confusing when you start adding variables like accelerators or dozens of deals. It can become time-consuming and it’s also easy to make mistakes. Tracking sales commissions manually may be right for you if you are an individual with very simple compensation plans and very few deals.

Pros:

• No tools needed
• Super quick for simple compensation plans

Cons:

• Works poorly for more complex compensation plans
• Easy to make mistakes
• Time-consuming
• No long term record of deals and payouts
• Doesn’t scale with team

Are Excel or spreadsheets the best way to keep track of sales?

Another way and the most common way of tracking commissions is through a sales commission tracking spreadsheet like Excel or Google Sheets. This works great when compensation plans get more complex and you can’t do the mental math as quickly. We find it best for slightly complex plans with many deals. Although most reps enjoy the flexibility of Excel, they are also well aware of its shortcomings. It can get frustrating tracking down a mistake you make in the logic when creating a tracking sheet. Not only is it mistake-prone, but it is also time-consuming. Not to mention, that it is difficult to scale to larger organizations and collaborate with team members. If you are a rep in a small team with compensation plans that are not very complex, sales commission tracking spreadsheets like Excel might be right for you.

Pros:

• Flexible
• Works well for very small teams
• Can handle more deals

Cons:

• Works poorly for more complex compensation plans
• Easy to make mistakes
• Time consuming
• Doesn’t scale with team
• Still manually entering deals

Should I track my sales commissions using QuotaPath?

And of course, there is QuotaPath! We provide a modern, automated solution that takes the burden of manual spreadsheets and mental math out of the equation. Personalized earnings and attainment dashboards make it easy to understand how your deals contribute to personal and company goals, which is a win for both reps and the company. QuotaPath ensures that everyone is aligned on how your commissions are tracked.

QuotaPath is right for you whether you’re an individual rep tracking your individual commissions or you are sales manager trying to motivate your sales teams.

Pros:

• Free for reps to use
• Visual representation of your progress
• Motivates you to achieve your quota and reach your goals
• Great for compensation plans of all complexities
• Scalable across all sales teams
• Easily share plans out and collaborate with team

Cons:

• Might not be useful for people with really simple commission plans

Commission report template

If you’re not ready to fully automate with QuotaPath, you can also download our free commission report template and sales commission calculator. This tool acts as a framework for how to track commissions. Input your compensation plan component, such as base salary, commission rate, quota, and on-target earnings (OTE). Then input your deals under the “Deals” tab and view your total sales and commissions under the “Monthly Totals” tab to track attainment and monthly commissions.

While those four methods are the most common when it comes to tracking commissions, we understand that sales folks might use other unique methods or software to help shine a light on their comp. The great thing about QuotaPath is that it’s free to use and only takes a few minutes to get up and running. If you want to see how QuotaPath can help you track your commissions, sign up for free.

FAQ:

Is it possible to monitor commissions within Salesforce?

You can monitor commissions within Salesforce by integrating the CRM with a sales compensation management solution. QuotaPath’s Salesforce commission tracking integration imports deals in real-time from within Salesforce and gives leadership and reps forecasted views into their earnings and attainment based on their Salesforce pipeline.

Read more on this company’s experience integrating Salesforce with QuotaPath and how it led to their most productive sales year to date.

What is a commission pool?

A commission pool is a type of sales compensation plan in which a portion of the company’s revenue is set aside to distribute to sales reps based on their performance. The pool is typically divided into equal shares, and each sales rep receives a commission based on the number of shares they earn.

Commission pools incentivize sales reps to work hard and close deals. By sharing in the company’s success, sales reps are more likely to be motivated to perform at their best.

There are a few different ways to calculate commission pool shares. One common approach is to use a formula that takes into account the sales rep’s individual performance, as well as the performance of the team or company as a whole. For example, a sales rep might earn one share for every $10,000 in sales they generate, and the team might earn an additional share for every $100,000 in sales they generate.

Commission pools can be a valuable tool for sales teams, but they’re not without their drawbacks. One of the biggest challenges with commission pools is that they can be difficult to administer. Companies need to carefully track sales data and ensure that the commission pool is distributed fairly.

What is the process for recording commissions on a balance sheet?

Commissions are not typically recorded on a balance sheet. Instead, they are recorded on an income statement as an expense as a period cost. This is because commissions are a cost of doing business, and they are not considered an asset or liability.

However, there are some cases where commissions may be recorded on a balance sheet. For example, if a company has a large number of unpaid commissions, it may choose to record them as a liability on the balance sheet. This is because the company has a legal obligation to pay the commissions, and it is likely that they will be paid in the near future.

Here are the steps on how to record commissions on an income statement:

Determine the amount of commissions earned. The amount of commissions earned is typically calculated by multiplying the sales amount by the commission rate.
Record the commissions expense. The commissions expense is recorded on the income statement as a selling expense.
Pay the commissions. The commissions are paid to the sales reps when they are earned.

Teams use QuotaPath to recognize commission expenses immediately, batch earnings, amortize them to align with their revenue recognition schedule, and create audit-ready reports.

Who is responsible for calculating sales commissions?

The team or individual responsible for calculating sales commissions will vary by the size or stage of the company. For instance, at smaller companies, sales managers typically calculate sales commissions for their teams. But at larger companies, a dedicated sales operations team will oversee this. However, with the rise in popularity of RevOps, we’ve seen RevOps take the lead on the compensation plan design process and calculating sales commissions.

To say we’re obsessed with Zoe would be an understatement. As QuotaPath’s inaugural intern, she has set a high bar in terms of quality of work, being a cultural influence, and her eagerness and willingness to learn. She also rocks an all monochrome outfit and light pink hair better than most. We got to sit down with her to talk about her experience at QuotaPath and how it’s helped shape her attitude towards the next step in her life and career.

Tell me about your journey to QuotaPath.

I‘m a Game Design and Production student at Drexel and we have a co-op program. The school mandates that we work somewhere for six months in order to get our degree. We’re helped to a certain extent, but placement isn’t guaranteed. After doing my own external searches and by the third round, I decided I was going to use the system because there was still a lot of interviews that I hadn’t gotten answers back on, and I was like, “I should find something quick” as well. I ended up applying to QuotaPath because the job description was super cool and mentioned a lot of mentorship, which sounded amazing. And you encouraged other hobbies outside of work as well. Work-life balance is very important to me, especially after being in classes for a year and a half straight with only a short break of two weeks.

Once I did the interviews, I talked to Darby (in charge of recruiting) and Eric (Technical Co-Founder). I really enjoyed talking to them and they seemed very likable and personable. Eric was also just very open with me. I’m very honest in my interview questions, whether they’re right or not, and he seemed to still appreciate them. He asked me if I knew Python because I did the coding challenge in Python. I just said that I used it in my sophomore year of high school and that I haven’t used it since until this code challenge, but I’ll figure it out. And he was totally down for it, which was pretty awesome.

And so I got the offer call. I was still waiting on another offer, but as soon as I said I was going to wait until Monday, I regretted it, and I was like, “I should’ve just taken it.” And so Monday I called back and I was like, “I’m going to accept it.” And I’m pretty riled that I got the other job offer the day after.

What’s your favorite part about the culture at QuotaPath?

One thing I want to say about the culture to start it off is that I love coming to work. I’ve worked from home on days when I don’t feel well, I’m sick or whatever, and it’s not the same. It’s so much better being around everyone, being able to communicate. It’s fun because I feel like even at work, we have a good life-work balance somehow. We all work really hard, but every once in a while we make jokes and there are little office conversations for like five minutes. And then we’re like, okay heads back down. Like making the alignment chart on the whiteboard about all the coworkers one day, that was really fun.

I enjoy that everyone’s really approachable. Since day one, I was able to ask people questions and no one ever treated me like a stereotypical intern. No one was ever like, “Wow, that’s a dumb question.” Or, “Go get me coffee.” You guys were like, “Hey come with us to this potential new office tour,” the very first week I was here. And I got invited to the company events like Quizzo and all kinds of really fun stuff. I was able to host my house warming party with everyone last weekend, which was really exciting, too. Everyone is very accessible, and sure there’s an age gap, but no one ever makes it awkward or anything. You’re just like, “You’re a coworker.”

Explain your role at QuotaPath. How does your skill set fit onto the engineering team?

In my first interview with Eric when he asked me what my goals were, I said I want to create art through code, which is very true. And our product is very front end driven. We have a whole bunch of front end engineers–the front end engineers definitely outweigh the back end ones right now. And we pay a lot of attention to the details of the visuals over-site, which is something I very much enjoy. We’re very open to changes as long as they make sense, which is also something really awesome. I love being able to go up to Ralph (Head of Design) and be like, “Hey, why aren’t we doing this instead?” And being able to make smaller changes. That’s something that’s really awesome.

I feel like the engineers and designers aren’t just working in boxes. There’s a lot of collaboration between all of us, which I think definitely plays into my background. As a game design major, I went through a lot of user interface design classes and art classes and design in general, so that’s a lot more my background with my computer science minor. Being able to combine those, it’s just something I’ve always wanted no matter where or what I’m doing, and I’ve definitely found that here. I’ve been able to be ambitious as well. I could say, “Hey, I really want to work on the back end and figure this out.” And I was given the opportunity to, which was pretty rare for interns and it’s pretty amazing.

What excites you most about the work QuotaPath is doing?

I think one of the things, especially from talking with Ralph (Head of Design), that excites me is just the accessibility we’re aiming for. We’re really working hard on our user experience and I think that it definitely shows. Even when we’re working on MVP and on certain new features, it’s always the absolute cleanest. I know that down the road we’re trying to be so accessible and usable for everyone that needs it or wants it. And that’s definitely something that’s really, really cool to me because we’re constantly improving. We’re definitely iterating. And that’s something I’ve discovered I love about product engineering–is that this is something we own and we can constantly fix. It’s never done. And that’s something that I really enjoy.

What’s the biggest thing that you’ve learned so far at QuotaPath?

That’s really hard. I have learned so much in my time here. So much. I came in, I didn’t know anything at all about TypeScript or React, which is what our front end is in, and now I work just like everyone else here. I get assigned just as much work, which is pretty wild when you think about it. I’ve obviously learned just coding and technical skills in general, and that has been extremely amazing. Our pull request process here is really amazing. I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from people and everyone pushes me. No one has just told me, “Oh your work is great,” when it’s not. Everyone’s like, “This is amazing, but here are some flaws as well,” which is very valuable. I appreciate everyone’s honesty in that sense.

I’ve just learned, a lot about myself as well in my time here. It’s definitely helped my self-confidence a lot in order to be part of this team, especially in the beginning. I love having seen certain new standards and traditions grow with the company because I came two weeks after MC (Director of Product) and seeing our product management and workflow process take shape over the past few months has been really amazing. It’s been really cool to see the process of how a startup gets to a big scale company and where some of those traditions come from. That’s been something that’s really cool to me.

Has your experience at QuotaPath helped prepare you for beginning your career?

Yes. So I’m attending college full time technically. I’m taking 12 credits this term, which isn’t a lot thankfully, and I’m working 20 and a half hours a week, which is on the higher of a part-time for sure. It’s been an honor to be able to stay part-time. That was something I asked relatively early on in order to sign a lease for an apartment.

And it’s super cool because not many people at 20 rent their apartment and have only their name on it, which is something I’ve definitely not taken for granted. I think that’s been incredible. It really makes me emotional sometimes to think about it. It definitely has prepared me. When I first came here, I thought I would like it, but wasn’t entirely sure what it entailed. I love this more than I thought I would at the beginning. I really do find a lot of joy in the work I’m doing. Sure, a lot of people might say, “Oh it’s so business and business can be boring,” but I don’t feel that way anymore at all.

I used to say I’d never want to work in business at all. I love this. I love having a living, breathing product, seeing the strategy that goes into it and being in a startup environment especially. I definitely would feel prepared if I went somewhere else in the future to have a lot of that insight. It’s really cool being part of a small team.

If you could give advice to others looking to start their career as a software engineer, what would it be?

So obviously you need a certain amount of knowledge in order to get in the door, but I’m actually going to say it’s less about what you know and more about what you can learn. I think being able to learn is a huge part of the job. I asked to do back end work and I asked for a little bit of help in the beginning, which is definitely important, but then I just put my head down and read so much documentation, figured it out as much as I could and then asked for feedback. I really think that’s been a valuable way to learn it.

I think if I had come in knowing a lot and not being able to learn, I might’ve been able to code well, but it wouldn’t have been up to par with what we do. I think adaptability is a huge part of it and having a good attitude about it. Not getting frustrated when you don’t know something and just being like this is a challenge, you to approach everything with like “I will find the solution to this challenge,” not, “I have no idea what to do. This is awful.”

So I would definitely say having a good attitude, being able to learn and being eager to learn are probably the biggest things.

We’re constantly thinking, talking, and writing about compensation plans (how to build one and which is our favorite for example)… In the ghastly spirit of Halloween, I wanted to write about THE SPOOKIEST COMP PLAN EVER! Fortunately for everyone, I’ve never encountered a plan this bad, but you might recognize some components from your own compensation plan in here! So let’s get started with this nightmare sales compensation plan. For the sake of example, we’re going to talk about Vandelay Industries, a (fictional) high-growth SaaS company with 25 sales reps and 10 SDRs.

Spooky thing 1: Too many components

Too many comp plans simply have too many moving parts. I’ve heard the adage that you can write a good comp plan on the back of a napkin/business card countless times and it’s a good place to start. I don’t think that any plan should have more than 3 different components (or Paths as they’re called in QuotaPath). If you’re pushing into 4+ different Paths, it might be time to simplify.

Vandelay Industries’ compensation plan has 8 components! I won’t list all of them here, but here are 4 of them:

1. Earn 10% of any 1-year new business deals until you hit your quota, then 20% of any 1-year new business deals over 100% of your quota.
2. Earn a flat 3% of any upsell deals for the first 6 months after a contract is signed
3. Earn a flat 1% of any renewal deals but only if your retention rate is greater than 75%
4. Earn a $500 bonus if you hit your monthly new business quota but only if you have closed at least 3 new business clients and you have $8k in upsell revenue that month

Spooky thing 2: Capped commission

There are very few times when a capped commission comp plan is acceptable. More often than not it is there as a failsafe to not overpay reps in case the organization didn’t do a good job building compensation plans. A cardinal sin for sales reps is sandbagging (holding back from closing deals this month to earn more money next month) and capped commissions are a major contributor to this behavior.

And of course, because this is a poorly designed comp plan, Vandelay Industries have a capped commission structure. Reps are only eligible to earn 2x their On-Target Earnings any given quarter. Any potential earnings over that are considered excess and aren’t paid out.

Spooky thing 3: Not attainable

There’s some debate about what percentage of a company’s salespeople should hit their quota every month/quarter ranging from 60-90%, but at QuotaPath we believe that around 75% of salespeople should hit their quota any given period. If it’s 100%, your quotas are likely too low, meaning the business is paying out too much in commission or not getting the most out of their reps. If it’s lower than 60%, quotas are probably too high and reps will become unmotivated and eventually leave.

Sales reps for Vandelay Industries have a $40k new business quota per month. On average, reps close $25k per month. Typically 5 of the 25 sales reps hit their quota every month — 20% of reps.

Spooky thing 4: Out of the rep’s control

For every [sales] action, there is an opposite equal [sales] reaction. Okay fine, Newton doesn’t perfectly translate to sales, but my point stands: what a salesperson does should impact their ability to close deals and, thereby, make money. Many organizations, though, tie compensation to things entirely out of control of the rep! Of course, very few things are entirely in the rep’s control — you can’t 100% control whether a contract gets signed — but compensation plans should avoid paying on things entirely out of the rep’s control.

Vandelay Industries has a big marketing presence, which is very helpful for building pipelines. However, there’s a sticky component of their compensation plan that has driven some reps mad: they have to run 10 demos with marketing sourced leads per month or else they’re ineligible for any commission that month. The problem is that some months the marketing team only sources 5 demos per rep. In those months, a lot of reps go without commission.

Spooky thing 5: Doesn’t drive the right behavior

Sales compensation plans can be explained fairly simply: reps do what you pay them to do. If you pay your reps to close 1-year deals, they’ll close 1-year deals. If you pay them to close deals with enterprise clients, guess what? They’re going to target enterprise clients.

Revenue retention is a very important thing for SaaS companies, which is why some opt to pay reps a higher percentage on multi-year deals — they lock in revenue for longer. Not Vandelay Industries, though. As you can see above, they pay reps 10% for 1-year deals. They only pay 4% of revenue on 2-year deals though. So a $10,000 deal for 1 year will pay you more than a $20,000 deal for 2 years — $1,000 vs. $800.

Oh, also the CEO loves companies that start with the letter Q (we get it, so do we!) so Vandelay pays out a $1,000 bonus for any deal closed with a company whose name starts with a Q. In turn, reps spend way too much time on those clients and ignore the other 25 perfectly good letters of the alphabet.

Spooky thing 6: No way to track commission/quota

The final (and if you’re asking me, the spookiest) issue with Vandelay Industries’ compensation plan is that they lack the ability to track their commissions! A few reps have tried to build a spreadsheet to track their earnings and quota attainment, but it’s too complex, it gets out of date quickly, and it is very manual.

That’s where QuotaPath comes in. In under 7 minutes, you can enter in your comp plan variables in QuotaPath’s simple onboarding wizard. Our system handles even the most complex (no matter how spooky they might be!) and we do all the math for you, so no more human error or manual updates. It’s totally easy to set up and completely free to use. And if you’re thinking that your compensation plans might not be driving the results you want, feel free to email me at graham@quotapath.com

Sales Development Reps (SDRs) play a key role in many B2B SaaS companies. They spearhead the efforts of generating leads and moving these leads through the top of the sales pipeline. SDRs also make up a key segment of the QuotaPath user base, so we thought we would learn a little bit more about them. We were excited to see that The Bridge Group did a research study on metrics and compensation for SDRs. Below we synthesized the findings of the report in a TL/DR format to our readers.

Group Structure

The Bridge Group analyzed data that they gathered from 434 companies who have a median annual revenue of $24M. A perennial question about SDRs is whether they report to the Sales or Marketing organization. The study found that in larger companies (over $5M revenue) the reps reported to Sales in 65% of companies and Marketing in 24% of companies. As is expected with startups and smaller companies (under $5M revenue), the reps reported to the CEO 32% of the time. If I can offer a personal opinion, it would be that your SDR team should report to whichever executive cares the most about their success. I’ve seen it successful with both the marketing AND sales… depending entirely on the executive in charge.

Researchers also found that nearly half of companies utilize blended inbound/outbound teams, with only 25% of companies having a dedicated inbound and outbound team. Unsurprisingly, different SDRs organizations are responsible for different degrees of qualified meetings. The study found that there’s a nearly identical split between SDR organizations responsible for setting intro meetings, setting semi-qualified opportunities, and setting fully qualified opportunities.

A fascinating finding by the researchers was that SaaS companies, in general, have begun employing lower SDR to AE ratios, than in the past. Currently, SaaS companies employ an average of 1 SDR for every 2.6 AEs. The researchers gave a few theories as to why this might be, but the rise of technology and automation within sales has resulted in a sharp increase in SDR productivity.

Ramp & Retention

Interestingly, the study found that the average experience required to hire a rep has declined by 45% since 2010. High-growth companies were found to be 30% more likely to hire a rep with less than one year of experience than companies that were not high-growth. This is a great indicator for recent college grads looking to break into sales!

It seems that every SDR is looking to move into a closing role as quickly as possible. It makes sense then that the average tenure of an SDR was 1.5 years. Considering that the average ramp-up period for new hires around 3.2 months, this gives a little over a year of full productivity before SDRs leave this role.

Compensation & Quotas

Now for our favorite part of the article: sales compensation and quotas. At QuotaPath, we believe that transparency of compensation plans for sales reps is extremely important. The average base salary for SDRs is $48k with an On-Target Earnings (OTE) of $75k, meaning on average SDRs are expecting $27k in commission/bonus per year.
Most companies tend to rely on variable compensation revolving around one or two components. The authors pointed out the issue with tying more than 20% of incentive compensation to “opportunities won”. Essentially, it makes little sense for a rep to get paid 100+ days after passing an opportunity, especially when the rep has little control of the win likelihood after passing it on. The “opportunity won” compensation for SDRs might also encourage them to spend more time getting a deal through the finish line, rather than focusing on talking to new prospects.

As we’ve written about in the past, Sales Development Rep quotas vary drastically depending on the company. They can range as low as two highly qualified opportunities a month to as high as 60 introductory demos a month depending on a variety of factors. There are typically four variables to take into consideration for setting quotas: activity focus, model, size of accounts, and market maturity.

As stated in the research article, setting quotas can be difficult. When setting the quota. it’s important to make it attainable so that your SDRs stay motivated and competitive.

Pro-tip: QuotaPath’s Teams feature provides a great way to visually track individual and team goals. Reps can see how they compare to their team members and also stay on track with their personal goals. Based on the research findings, on average, 68% of reps achieve quota in a given group. Teams can help Sales Development Reps who are struggling, stay motivated to reach their quotas.

Activity and Sales Leadership

In general, the Sales Development Reps in the study made 45 dials per day with an average of about 5 quality conversations per day. Companies also spent around $371 per SDR per month on technologies (think Salesforce, Outreach.io, Salesloft, etc.). Want some good news? Anyone can use QuotaPath to track quota attainment and commissions for free. Built by salespeople for salespeople, QuotaPath was built to empower individual reps and provide managers with the tools necessary to allow their reps to succeed. For example, the study shows that some of the top challenges facing those managing SDR groups are issues like productivity/performance, metrics/reporting, motivation, and compensation (optimizing, planning). QuotaPath enables you to tackle each of these issues and provides value not only to managers but to individual reps themselves.

If you’d like to do more digging into the report, check out the full study. To start using QuotaPath to help your team achieve their goals, sign up today for free!