Looking for a Sales Performance Management (SPM) solution? As with any large enterprise purchase, you are probably getting ready to embark on a procurement journey, the better part of which represents the traditional Request for Proposal (RFP) process. If you think it’s an efficient, effective way to find the best SPM solution, you are likely mistaken.

What’s wrong with RFPs?

Traditional RFPs are Dead on Arrival (DOA)

Now, the purpose of an RFP is, indeed, to provide an organized and efficient way for the buying group and the stakeholders to learn about the options available and to make an informed selection. However, as you’ll soon discover, the traditional RFP approach defeats this purpose.

And here is why – the traditional RFP is:

1. Time-consuming. An RFP process can last more than seven months from start to finish. Add-in contracting and solution deployment time, and more than a year and a half can go by before even realizing any outcomes. Was that the original intent? To spend more than a year to realize benefits?
   
2. RFP requirements gathering. When putting together the RFP requirements, buying companies do not always have the internal expertise to ask the right questions (sometimes uncomfortable questions). They often rely on analyst reports that fail to recommend crucial functionality or to focus on integral processes. Or they have a fixed and restrictive idea of what the solution should do. For these reasons, RFP content is often incomplete or misses the point.
   
3. Resource-intensive. Gathering requirements, engaging with analysts, contacting vendors, reviewing submissions, and then meeting with each vendor for demos and POCs is a tedious process. Not to mention, that canned demo you received – couldn’t you have experienced that much earlier in the process for yourself? 
   
4. Inflexible. Technology is evolving fast and by the time the RFP questionnaire is finalized and sent to vendors, new features and innovations might have hit the market – which the questionnaire does not cover. So, the buying team ends up evaluating offerings based on outdated requirements.
   
5. Biased. Let’s face it: Many decision-makers at buying companies typically have their mind made-up before the process even starts. Some provide information “off the record” to their preferred vendor, giving them an advantage over the other suppliers. Even worse, some companies go ahead with the RFP process just to comply with procurement procedures. In the end, those who end up losing are the stakeholders – the people who will be working with the selected solution the most.
   
6. Abstract. In many cases, the buying decision relies heavily on vendor responses – all wrapped up in marketing speak – and their ability to deliver a “demo” (half of which could be vapor) versus the stakeholder’s ability to gain hands-on experience with each offering. Failing to gain hands-on experience, stakeholders do not have a reasonable understanding of what it would be like to work with each solution and vendor daily. So basically, they are deciding about enterprise technology without even knowing what it is like to actually use the software and work with the support.
   
7. Ineffective. Asking vendors to fill out a common-denominator RFP means shoving them all into the same box, which forces them to compete on price AND removes any semblance of innovation and differentiation. Ultimately, this leads to purchasing a half-rate solution or to making a significant compromise on crucial functionality.

In other words, the traditional RFP is DOA!

…And yet, the traditional RFP approach is still being used today

‘Why?’, you may ask. There are quite a few interesting reasons:

• To give Procurement the ability to compare apples-to-apples.

In an apples-to-apples comparison the various vendors end up competing on price, which ultimately translates to “a good deal”, at least in Procurement terms.

But what happens when one vendor is an orange in the apple basket?

The buying group misses out on value, precisely because the “orange” vendor is forced to fill out a common-denominator RFP to fit the “apple” format. As a result, rarely will an orange – wrongly considered an apple – get a real chance to demonstrate its true value.

• “Because it’s an industry standard”.

Industry standards are crucial to the well-functioning of markets and businesses.

But what if the industry standard for RFPs evolved into an effective and efficient process – free from the inefficiencies listed above?

The buying group would benefit from a transparent assessment of each solution they are looking at, a fair comparison based on value, and ultimately, an informed decision on what solution is the best fit for the entire organization, including the people who will be using it daily.

• Companies rely heavily on their relationships with analyst firms – who influence the industry standards!

But what if the buying group does not have internal expertise and also base their RFP requirements on analyst guidelines?

They may be missing out on opportunities as many industry analyst definitions and guidance on RFP requirements are incomplete or misaligned to company needs. Here’s why:

1. They put very little emphasis on data management as being a crucial process for SPM and does not outline the “dirty data” challenges most companies face after signing the contract with certain point solution vendors. Discussions about data management for SPM should be had long before the RFP process even begins, to avoid common change orders and costly implementation delays.
2. They put virtually no emphasis on capabilities that help the buying group to expand and evolve SPM programs. This too represents a great loss for the buying group; discussions about expansion opportunities should be held early on so that they can get an idea of the true value of the solution they are assessing. Do point solution vendors really think needs won’t change in the future?

So what is a good way to effectively assess the true value of an SPM solution?

Glad you asked. The answer is hands-on experience using the actual solution, learning what the solution does, engaging with solution experts on the vendor side on a daily basis for questions and guidance, and exploring the possibilities beyond current needs.

Forget shiny demos and canned RFP responses!  Emulate how you and your colleagues across disciplines would actually use the solution day-to-day.

Any vendor confident in the value of their solution should be more than willing to offer this type of access to the entire group of stakeholders involved in the buying process. So the stakeholders themselves can explore and learn about the solution at their own pace.

Only when all the stakeholders feel confident the solution will make their lives easier, that is when you know you’ve found the right one for your organization.

If you’re evaluating SPM solutions, you may want to look at a comprehensive SPM competitor analysis that takes into consideration all the points above. Get to the essence of the differences between SPM vendors and their solutions and bring more clarity to your assessment.

Check out SPM competitor analysis

This is part 1 of the 3-part “Failure Series” of blogs, where we will take a deep dive into common issues that organizations face when implementing new systems and solutions. The goal is to gain an understanding of why implementations fail, the costs that are associated with failure, and ways to avoid failure altogether. Let’s start with taking a look at why implementations fail.

Failure is something that all people and organizations face at one point or another. It often necessitates learning or growth and enlightens a clearer path to success. That does not mean that failure should be viewed as acceptable. In fact, it should be avoided at all costs, especially when it involves core systems and new implementations.

A recent study by the Standish Group revealed that only 14% of IT projects are purely successful, meaning they are delivered on time, on budget, and with high customer satisfaction and high return on value for the organization. Conversely, 19% of IT projects are utter failures.

There are numerous reasons why implementations fail, and they can vary depending on the uniqueness of an organization, the specific industry it operates in, or just a basic misunderstanding of expectation versus reality. Regardless of the variables, failure can usually be traced back to 3 core reasons: understanding data, required resources, and third party implementation partners. Let’s take a closer look at all 3.

1. Understanding data:

Do I understand my data and is it readily compatible with the new solution?

Organizations are quick to pull the trigger on purchasing solutions without understanding the necessary nuances around their data. Where does it come from? When is it collected? How is it stored? What structure is it in? Are there integration requirements?

These are key elements that need to be known before implementation can begin and should be part of advanced planning that takes place during the browsing or buying process.  Unfortunately, they often get overlooked and when organizations are ready to begin implementing a new solution they purchased, they are abruptly met with issues that stem from the data.

Most commonly, data sources are incompatible with the new solution, the data format doesn’t match the required structure to flow into the new solution, and the many known and/or unknown data feeds prove difficult to reconcile with the new solution.

These and other similar issues delay or derail implementations completely. However, when you take the time to really understand what you have before you even begin looking for what you need, you can easily avoid them.

2. Required resources:

Are the right people available to ensure success?

There is always some degree of a learning curve when implementing a new system as users will need time to adjust to using it. To ensure that they keep timelines, hit deadlines, and continually build on their understanding and knowledge, it is important that these people are aware of their roles in the implementation and what will be required of them during the process.

Old roles do not necessarily translate to new functions. A person with the title of project manager may not have the aptitude to lead the implementation because they do not have the required skills or even time to dedicate. Prior to the kick-off of the implementation, the requirements of the project must be identified, and the right people must be evaluated and matched with their proper functions. When this does not happen, implementations stall.

People without proper knowledge or training get dropped and new people join the process, which results in uneven work and delays the project as the new people get acclimated. These disjointed efforts create gaps in completion or even cause oversights in key elements needed to properly test the solution. The more prevalent these are, the higher the risk of failure and abandonment of the project.

3. Third-party implementation partners:

Who does the implementation – me, my vendor, or a third party?

A key question that organizations often fail to ask when browsing for a new solution is “Who?” Who is going to be doing the implementation?

Some vendors partner with their buyers to do a collaborative implementation, while other vendors make the buyers do it 100% on their own. Conversely, there are also vendors that handle the implementation themselves for an additional cost. But in any scenario, there needs to be a firm understanding of whose responsibility it is.

What some vendors may not disclose is that when they handle implementations, they use third-party resources to do so. These third-party partners do not have the same knowledge of your organization. They are often not a part of the preliminary or planning talks and are simply assigned tasks. Therefore, they do not fully understand the challenges or issues your organization is looking to address with a new solution, and do not properly design the features of the software to align with your desired results.

As identified in #2 above, it is important to know who is involved in the project and what their role is. Managing an internal team is challenging enough but corralling additional people from a third party creates an unnecessary challenge. What we have seen from implementations that follow this path include collapses in communication, uncertainty around who is doing what, missed deadlines, and delayed delivery. This can cause friction, as faith in the project begins to falter and more problems arise than solutions. Many organizations walk away from failed implementations caused by third parties and wish they knew about them before purchasing.

It’s always exciting getting a shiny new toy, and sometimes we are so eager to have something that we don’t do the proper research ahead of time to make sure what we are buying is what we truly need. Understanding our own needs is crucial in ensuring that our expectations are met upon purchase. We should always do research, ask questions, and leave no stone unturned, especially when we are ready to make a large financial commitment that affects not only ourselves but the entirety of our organization. Understanding the reasons many implementations can fail will hopefully help avoid them in the future.

Stay tuned for the next article in this series where we will be looking at how a failed implementation can have serious costs associated with it, beyond just the bottom line.

In the meantime, here are a few examples of how organizations like yours successfully implemented no-code solutions and achieved outcomes beyond expectations.

Check out success stories

The rise of low-code/no-code solutions is speeding up digital transformations across organizations. The low-code platform development market is estimated to grow from USD 13.2 billion in 2020 to USD 45.5 billion in 2025. Moreover, according to Gartner, low-code application platforms will account for 65 percent of all application development by 2024.

Pro tip: While ‘low-code development’ implies that applications can be built with minimal (low) programming, ‘no-code development’ allows users to create or modify applications without any programming knowledge. Today, both concepts are often grouped together in the ‘low-code’ category, but we’ll hear more about ‘no-code development’ as a category in its own right in the coming years.

This will allow non-technical users to use low-code/no-code platforms to build applications while organizations save money on technical expertise and on-site infrastructure. The resulting freed-up time will also allow them to improve the organization’s performance. However, with every new technology come certain risks that need to be managed and controlled to derive the full benefits.

With low-code/no-code solutions, organizations need to pay extra attention to potential risks associated with data security, auditing and compliance, scalability, and ease of use. So here’s what you need to be mindful of while evaluating one:

Data safety and security

One of the main concerns that any organization should have is how safe and secure their data will be. When looking for a low-code/no-code solution, first and foremost, invest time to understand if it is built on a secure platform and whether the vendor complies with data protection regulations. You also need to make sure you understand the vendor’s data backup policies and disaster recovery process in case of data loss or rewriting.

At the same time, you need to investigate how sensitive data will be handled – whether the solution provides the ability to ensure that its users can access only the information they are supposed to see. For example, not all employees working with HR systems need to access salary information pertaining to the entire organization. So access to this type of sensitive data should be limited to certain roles.

As data sensitivity differs from company to company, you need to make sure the solution provides the ability to set up roles and user restrictions as per your organization’s specific needs.

Reliability – know your vendor!

To ensure a successful solution use across the organization, it’s important to evaluate the vendor as well against three key criteria:

• Compliance experience. The vendor you’re considering should be able to work with you to complete your security and legal compliance audits. However, some vendors might not work with client organizations that handle huge amounts of data with stringent control requirements. So be sure to investigate whether the vendor’s experience matches your business needs in this area.

• Reliability. The vendor should be easily accessible and willing to work with you to resolve any issues. A reliable vendor provides quick access to support services and an efficient system to track all the support requests with defined SLAs based on ticket priority.

• Expert guidance. The vendor should be able to guide you in the implementation process. They should also allow you to provide feedback on system constraints and the addition of new features and capabilities.

Solution scalability

Aside from making sure that the low-code/no-code solution can fulfill your current requirements, you also need to investigate whether it’s scalable enough to meet your future needs. So be sure to look into:

• its ability to integrate with your current data sources;
• what amounts of data it can load and process, and at what frequency and speed;
• how new features are determined and how frequently upgrades are done.

Learning curve

Not all low-code/no-code solutions are easy to configure and deploy and may require a longer learning curve. So it’s important you assess the skills needed for implementing and using the solution you’re considering, evaluate them against your resources’ skills, and determine the associated learning curve. The support and guidance provided by the vendor – e.g., user documentation, training sessions, expert services to monitor the solution implementation, best practices, etc. –  are essential in this learning process. So make sure you evaluate the vendor from this perspective as well.

Just because we’re talking ‘low-code/no-code solutions’ doesn’t mean that shopping for one should be a risk-free process. But it shouldn’t be a daunting one either. By paying close attention to the four points above you will go a long way in making the right investment.

The Optymyze unified, no-code platform enables enterprises to solve the challenges posed by siloed systems and succeed at digital transformation. Learn how.

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When ASC 606/IFRS 15 was introduced, it not only shook the accounting world at that time but it continues to have reverberations across entire organizations even today. Companies reporting under the US GAAP or the IFRS accounting standards have had to go to great lengths to adapt their internal processes, with one area proving particularly challenging: commission expense accounting. Years later, challenges still persist for organizations trying to maintain compliance with these standards. Here, we outline 5 specific actions your organization can take to make compliance easier.

Aggregating sales commission data and identifying eligible contracts with customers are just some of the challenges that CFOs, accounting/finance specialists, and even sales operations professionals have struggled with in this area. And many are still struggling today.

What to do? To identify the right solution, we need to get a good understanding of the problem first. Let’s start with a brief overview.

ASC 606 / IFRS 15 overview: purpose, impact, and risks

In 2014, diverging areas of the US and international revenue recognition standards prompted the FASB and IASB to amend and converge their guidelines. The new ASC 606/IFRS 15 went into effect in 2018 for public companies, and 2019 for private ones. Their aim is to reduce financial reporting inconsistencies across industries and globally. This, in turn, ensures more accurate financial performance assessments of companies within and across industries.

Under ASC 606 / IFRS 15, organizations that pay commissions on revenue generated from contracts – other than insurance and lease contracts, and financial instruments – need to capitalize the incremental costs of obtaining a contract at inception, if the contract’s duration is longer than one year.

In other words, the associated commissions paid to salespeople can no longer be treated as a one-time expense. Instead, they must be treated as an asset that gets amortized over the duration of the contract. Importantly, the duration of amortization will vary depending on whether the contract is reasonably expected to be renewed.

Now, if a company fails to correctly recognize sales commission expenses under the amended guidelines, it may need to restate its earnings. This increases the risk that investors or customers will doubt the credibility of the company’s financial reports.

Likewise, at an operational level, if a company lacks visibility into contracts and associated sales commissions, it may not be able to systematically identify those that are eligible for amortization. This leads to inefficient and inaccurate accounting practices, making it difficult to comply with the new regulations.

Compliance is a shared responsibility

To mitigate these risks, multiple groups in the organization need to come together and understand how they can best support each other’s work under these regulations. From Finance to Sales, various roles need to join forces to ensure a seamless commission expense recognition management process. For example:

Compensation administrators

• Must be able to identify contracts that span a period of more than one year.
• Equally important, they must be able to differentiate between commissions paid to sales reps as opposed to supervisors, as they may need to be treated differently.

Sales Operations managers

• Need to ensure access to detailed revenue and commission data at the customer, contract, and product level.
• Above all, they need to ensure that compensation plans continue to motivate the right sales behaviors, as opposed to changing plans to make accounting easier.

Accounting / Finance managers

• Must be able to trace amortized expenses back to contracts and track changes in assets over time.
• In addition, they should ensure an auditable system of record.

CFOs

• Must ensure an accurate accounting of commissions expenses, and a cost-effective auditing process.

The real compliance problem

Coordinating roles and responsibilities under these new regulations is difficult, but manageable. The real problem that many companies have not yet solved is equipping everyone involved with the right tools to streamline the process. As a result, they still struggle with:

• Failure to correctly account for contracts and associated sales commissions;
• Lack of visibility into contracts and sales commissions that are eligible for amortization;
• Reliance on spreadsheets and manual processes to track sales commissions, which lead to errors and miscalculations.

5 key actions to take NOW to ensure a seamless ASC 606 / IFRS 15 compliance process

So ASC 606 / IFRS 15 compliance has proven to be a bear for many companies. But it shouldn’t be. Here are 5 key actions organizations can take to overcome compliance hurdles:

1. Encourage solid partnerships between sales operations and accounting/finance teams and clearly communicate about everyone’s role in this process.
2. Assess compensation, accounting and auditing practices, and internal controls, and update necessary systems and processes.
3. Evaluate the ability of your systems to capture granular data and report amortized commissions in accordance with the new regulations.
4. Determine the amortization method and analyze existing contracts to estimate their duration if they’ll potentially be renewed for an anticipated amount of time.
5. Choose a business process automation solution that automates the commission expense recognition process, effectively addresses governance and compliance challenges, and ensures proper auditing going forward.

Learn how the Optymyze solution for Commission Expense Recognition (ASC 606 / IFRS 15) automates key business processes to ensure compliance with accounting standards. 

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No-code/low-code development has been around for a while, acting like a disruptive force across IT. However, as disruption triggers innovation, more enterprises have started to realize the advantages of using no-code/low-code solutions to fuel their digital transformation.

Not surprisingly, a recent industry report forecasts the low-code development platform market size to reach $46.4 billion in 2026, at a compound annual growth rate of 25%. The same industry analysts highlight numerous partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, product launches and expansions occurring amongst notable market players within this space.

Despite its rising popularity—or perhaps because of it—some common misconceptions still persist. Perceived downsides of limited no-code tools may have had some truth initially. However, now that the market has matured and several new competitors have flooded the space, there have been considerable improvements to no-code options. 

Still skeptical? Let’s further explore these 4 common misconceptions:

1. No code (or low code) is only made for building end-user applications  

No code is not only about building applications. Although, yes – there are more options to choose from if you’re simply shopping for a no-code application builder. However, there are veritable no-code or low-code solutions that perform other enterprise functions such as data warehousing; analytic data processing; and modeling and planning. In fact, it is likely that these are the market areas that will continue to grow and innovate in the next couple of years. 

Below are key players in the enterprise functions where no-code or low-code development has proven to work and to be a crucial game-changer for businesses—especially those struggling to find enough development and IT resources or wanting to better leverage their citizen developers. 

The “declarative programming” concept – telling the software what to do, instead of how to do it –that is embraced in a no-code development platform applies to any enterprise function. It is this declarative programming that drives no code’s signature speed and ease of use, providing endless options.

2. No code is anti-developer

No code may leave traditional developers feeling skeptical and perhaps even underappreciated.  There is certainly tons of press circulating about all the benefits of having citizen developers do work they used to perform. But most traditional developers should be self-aware enough to see how no-code development innovations benefit them.

There are voices suggesting that developers will organically shed their menial duties and take on the more advisory and strategic roles. Citizen developers will perform the easy tasks, while traditional developers’ work will be elevated to more specialized challenges: governance, security, compliance, and oversight of the change management processes.

With this organizational model, traditional developers will be able to increase their contribution levels, their value, and their pay.   

3. No code cannot scale; no code cannot handle big data

Not all no-code players are the same – some are able to handle big data, others not so much. So during the procurement process, it’s important to ask whether the solution you’re assessing is able to scale and handle big data needs for today and for the future. After all, it’s well known that big data is the future, and any no-code solutions that cannot handle large data sets run the risk of becoming obsolete. 

However, the question is not just about how much data the no-code development platform is able to store and process. It is also about how easily the platform integrates with an organizations’ existing data sources. Most companies have siloed data that exists in several other enterprise applications or legacy data systems. So a no-code platform that allows for easy data ingestion from various sources will certainly benefit them.

The best no-code platforms today offer built-in data integrations or some fast ways to ingest data in real time, as opposed to others that outsource the integration piece to third-party tools – an approach that, more often than not, creates additional work and challenges.

4. No code is inflexible  

As enterprise buyers evaluate a purchase, they also assess potential risks associated with any new enterprise solution. One common concern is getting stuck with an inflexible platform that does not cater to additional, unique needs that might arise in the future.

Fortunately, there are development platforms that are either 100% no code and flexible, or feature a combination of no-code setup standards and custom coding options. This means they allow for the possibility to interject custom code if and as needed.

These development platform companies have recognized the value of the 80/20 rule, and successfully implemented it. They have built no-code standards to address the needs of approximately 80% of the buyers without any customization and have also accounted for potential custom needs that 20% of the buyers might have.

There are no-code custom platforms that provide setup choices that allow for an unlimited number of no-code options to address custom needs. And there are hybrid ones that come with a combination of no-code and low-code setup choices that only present options for coded customization where necessary.

Development platforms that offer no-code standard options and no-code custom options are best equipped to address any requirements an enterprise may have now or in the future. These are the ones that allow you to choose out-of-the-box solutions, without being “stuck in the box” all the time.

Now, it’s time to put these misconceptions behind and make the most of the advantages that no code has to offer. Learn how Optymyze enables today’s enterprises to successfully reach their digital transformation goals.

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When salespeople don’t perform at their best, leaders often point fingers at sales compensation or strategy – but these sorts of problems often stem from the company’s sales structure. Though it’s very important to craft a complex sales force structure that supports company growth, 9 out of 10 sales organizations are struggling to find the sales structure that best suits their particular needs.

Practically speaking, most organizations use some hybrid of the sales organization structures I’ll outline here, with sales force size and market segmentation serving as prime considerations. Every sales force structure has its own set of pros and cons, so it’s important to form a structure that supports your company’s goals.

Geographic Organizational Structure

This is also known as territorial sales force structure, and it means that the organization assigns each sales rep to a certain geographic area.

Advantages:

• Low cost
• Proper territory management leads to low geographic duplication of effort
• Low duplication of effort with customers (unless buyers are organizations that cross territories)

Disadvantages:

• Sales reps have a hard time developing product or market specialization (unless the organization commits to specialized sales forces allocated by geography)
• Territory sizing can be a challenge, resulting in uneven revenue/opportunity across geographies

Product Sales Force Structure

In this alignment, the sales force’s area of responsibility is defined by the products or product groups, ignoring geographical lines.

Advantages:

• Sales reps develop product expertise
• Management can guide selling efforts

Disadvantages:

• Higher costs due to duplication of efforts within geographies and customer accounts
• Coordination required when more sales reps have the same geography/accounts

Market-Based Structure

This is also known as customer sales force structure, and it means that sales reps are grouped by customer or industry.

Advantages:

• Sales reps understand the needs of their customers and build stronger relationships
• Management control can be strategically allocated to different markets

Disadvantages:

• Higher costs
• Geographic duplication

Functional Structure

In this structure, responsibilities are divvied up according to everyone’s place in the sales process – inside sales, account managers, product specialists, and so on.

Advantages:

• More efficient selling activities

Disadvantages:

• Geographic duplication
• Customer duplication
• Greater need for coordination

Your Company Needs the Right Sales Structure

According to a Harvard Business Review survey, high-performing sales organizations have well-documented and explicitly structured sales processes. A clearly documented sales structure helps streamline the chain of command, and the increased transparency leads to more efficient decision-making.

Selecting the right sales force structure and documenting it thoroughly provides a host of organizational benefits:

• Clarity of responsibilities across roles: sales reps know what responsibilities they have for different product lines and markets
• Stronger coordination and communication: mobility for sales forces and increased time for actual selling
• A more knowledgeable sales force: top sales reps are willing to share know-how
• Improved decision-making transparency: sales managers share information on a regular basis and get faster buy-in when making changes
• Reduced channel conflict and increased engagement: fewer disputes over new opportunities, more engagement towards achieving sales goals

Now you’re ready to start building the unique sales management structure that best fits your organization – helping you improve performance, adapt your sales compensation strategy, and drive sales growth.

Looking to boost your sales team’s performance? Optymyze enables you to drive sales performance with sales commission, territory, quota, and objective management.

Check out Optymyze solutions

Most sales incentive plans do not move the needle. They reward the wrong behaviors, motivate only the top ten percent, or get so complex that reps stop tracking them. The good news is that the difference between an incentive plan that drives performance and one that drifts is not budget, it is design.

This guide collects 16 sales incentive plan ideas that real sales organizations use to motivate teams beyond their base commission, organized into cash, recognition, and experience categories so you can build a mix that fits your team. For the broader strategic context on how incentive pay actually works, see our pillar guide on incentive compensation.

Why Most Sales Incentive Plans Fail

Sales incentive plans tend to fail in three predictable ways. Understanding them shapes which ideas below are worth borrowing for your team.

The first failure mode is paying for activity instead of outcomes. Plans that reward calls made or demos booked sound efficient, but they teach reps to optimize for the metric, not the result. The second is rewarding only the top performers. When the top ten percent of reps capture nearly all the upside, the median performer disengages and the bottom quartile stops trying. The third is over-engineering, layering so many metrics, accelerators, and clawbacks that no rep can predict their pay accurately. When reps cannot do the math, the plan stops motivating.

The 16 ideas below avoid these failure modes by combining cash, recognition, and experience-based rewards in ways that motivate the whole team rather than just the leaderboard top.

16 Sales Incentive Plan Examples

The table below summarizes the 16 ideas. Each is described in detail underneath.

Cash Incentives

1. Tiered commission accelerators. Pay an accelerated commission rate above quota. Per WorldatWork, above-quota accelerator multipliers typically run between 1.5x and 2x base commission. Accelerators reward stretch performance without changing the base plan, and most enterprise sales plans include them.

2. SPIFFs. Short-term, focused incentives that pay a flat dollar amount for a specific behavior. Used to push a new product, accelerate quarter close, or reward pipeline generation. Most effective when used sparingly, two or three times per year. The how to calculate sales commission guide covers how SPIFFs sit alongside core commission structures.

3. Quarterly performance bonus. A bonus tied to attainment over a quarter, typically 5 to 15 percent of base salary. Works well for stable territories where attainment distributes around the target. Pays out frequently enough to feel responsive, but not so often that it loses signal.

4. Sustained performance bonus. A retention-focused payout for reps who hit quota in three or four consecutive quarters. Common amounts range from $5,000 to $25,000. Aligns the rep with long-term consistency, not just one big quarter.

5. Team profit-sharing pool. A percentage of team-level profit distributed across the team, typically annually. Strengthens cohesion in pod or matrix structures where individual attribution is fuzzy. Less effective in highly individualized sales models.

Recognition Incentives

6. President’s Club trip. Annual recognition trip for the top performers, typically the top 10 to 20 percent of the sales force. Cost runs $5,000 to $15,000 per attendee, but the social signal and aspirational pull often justify the spend many times over. Works because it is both private (only the top tier qualifies) and public (everyone knows who went).

7. Public peer recognition. An enterprise social channel, an all-hands shoutout slot, or a peer-nominated weekly award. Cost is essentially zero, but visibility and frequency matter. Recognition that happens monthly with named winners drives more behavior than recognition that happens annually with a plaque.

8. Personalized awards. Custom plaques, framed achievements, or themed gifts that mark a memorable win. Cost is low ($100 to $500) but the personalization is what carries weight. The award reps mention to their families and post on LinkedIn is the one designed for them, not the one with their name printed on it.

9. Privileges. Status rewards that cost the company little. A reserved parking space for the top monthly performer. First pick of vacation weeks. A premium office or desk. Choose-your-own perk budget. The economic value is small, but the social value is what reps remember.

10. Donation in their name. A charitable donation to the rep’s chosen organization, typically $100 to $1,000. Particularly effective with values-aligned reps who do not need more cash but appreciate the company recognizing what they care about.

Experience Incentives

11. Flexible hours and extra PTO. One of the most consistently appreciated non-cash rewards. Costs nothing and addresses the burnout that affects high performers most. Can be structured as a defined number of bonus PTO days for hitting quota, or simply as flexibility in scheduling.

12. Professional development stipend. $500 to $3,000 per year for courses, conferences, certifications, or coaching. Particularly motivating for career-focused reps who view their compensation in terms of long-term trajectory, not just this year’s OTE.

13. Premium experiences. Concert tickets, sporting event suites, fine dining, weekend getaways. Memorable and sharable, which makes them stick longer than a cash equivalent. Effective at the team level (everyone gets one) and at the individual top-performer level.

14. Tech and equipment upgrades. Premium laptop, ultra-wide monitor setup, ergonomic chair, noise-cancelling headphones. Used daily, which extends the motivational lifespan of the reward. In 2026, baseline home office stipends are now standard at most B2B companies, so performance-tied tech upgrades work as the layer above baseline. The motivational lift comes from being the upgrade, not the entry-level setup.

15. Executive mentorship sessions. A scheduled monthly or quarterly session with a senior leader, reserved for high-potential reps. Costs nothing financially but signals strongly that the company is invested in the rep’s career. Often more retentive than a cash bonus of equivalent perceived value.

16. AI tooling adoption bonus. A short-term bonus paid for effective use of AI tools (prospecting AI, conversation intelligence, deal coaching AI). Some B2B companies in 2025 and 2026 have introduced these to drive rep adoption of new tooling, often as a quarterly SPIFF tied to demonstrated tool usage and measurable productivity lift, in the $500 to $2,000 range per qualifying period. The structure works when the tooling is genuinely changing rep productivity. It tends to feel performative when reps are pushed to adopt tools that don’t actually improve their work.

Cash vs Non-Cash Incentives

Cash incentives are unambiguous and scalable. They translate directly into take-home pay, which makes them efficient at driving short-term, transactional behavior. Their weakness is that cash gets absorbed into the household budget quickly, and the motivational signal fades after the deposit clears.

Non-cash incentives carry a different signal. Recognition, contests, awards, trips, and premium experiences are visible, memorable, and harder to quantify in dollar terms. They tend to be more effective at building culture, reinforcing values, and rewarding contributions that resist easy measurement. The tradeoff is that non-cash programs are more labor-intensive to run and easier to mismanage.

The most effective sales incentive plans use cash to reward the core economic activity (closing deals, hitting quota, retaining accounts) and non-cash to reinforce the behavior and culture around that activity (top performer recognition, contest SPIFFs, peer awards). The two work together. Choosing between them usually means underperforming on both.

How to Build Your Sales Incentive Plan

Start with the behavior you want to drive. If the goal is more new logos, design incentives around new-logo bookings. If the goal is retention, design incentives around renewal and expansion. The mistake is to start with the budget and back into the metrics, rather than starting with the strategy and building incentives that reinforce it. Our guide on how to design the right compensation plan walks through this end-to-end.

Next, choose three or four ideas from the 16 above, not all 15. The best incentive plans are clear, predictable, and focused. Layering too many incentives produces the over-engineering failure mode described earlier. Pick one core cash mechanic (likely accelerators or a quarterly bonus), one or two recognition mechanics, and one experience-based perk. Communicate the plan clearly and consistently. Talentfoot’s 2026 data finds that companies which document their incentive plans and review them annually consistently outperform peers who treat compensation as a static budget item.

Finally, evaluate. Track payout against budget, attainment distribution against the target curve, and dispute frequency against expectations. If reps cannot predict their own pay, the plan is too complex. If only the top quintile is hitting quota, the targets are too high. The clear compensation plan communication piece covers how to make the math visible to the team.

Sales Incentive Plan FAQs

What is the best sales incentive idea?

There is no single best idea. The most effective sales incentive plans combine three or four mechanics across cash, recognition, and experience categories. The right combination depends on the team’s sales motion, the maturity of the territory, and the behavior the company wants to amplify.

How much should a sales incentive cost?

Variable. Cash incentives commonly run 5 to 25 percent of base salary depending on role and pay mix. Recognition and experience incentives can range from free (peer awards, flexible hours) to $5,000+ per attendee for President’s Club. Total incentive spend should be planned alongside the broader sales compensation budget, not added on top of it.

How often should incentive plans change?

Core mechanics (commission rate, base pay mix, quota-setting methodology) should be reviewed annually. SPIFFs and contests can run monthly or quarterly. The risk of changing too often is that reps stop trusting the plan; the risk of changing too rarely is that the plan stops matching the strategy.

Do non-cash incentives actually work?

Yes. Research consistently shows that recognition, awards, and experience-based rewards can be as motivating as equivalent cash, sometimes more so, because they carry social and memorability signal that cash does not. The most effective programs combine both. For more on how the incentive mix shapes total earning potential, see our guide on on target earnings.

Sales incentive plans work when they are designed deliberately, communicated clearly, and matched to the strategy of the business. The 16 ideas above are starting points, not a checklist. Pick the three or four that fit the team you have, the goals you set, and the culture you want to reinforce. At Optymyze, compensation management is the operational layer that makes complex incentive plans hold together at scale, with full audit trails and the flexibility to evolve as the business changes. Sales rep management covers how managers actually deliver these incentives day to day through coaching, reviews, and retention conversations.

Sales team restructuring is one of the highest-leverage operational moves a revenue leader makes, and one of the easiest to mismanage. Done well, restructuring fixes underperforming territories, aligns the team to a new strategy, and resets attainment for a productive new cycle. Done poorly, it disrupts pipeline, demotivates top performers, and produces an org chart that looks better than it works.

This guide covers the signs your sales team needs restructuring, a 5-step process for getting it right, the change management practices that hold the team together during transition, and the mistakes that turn restructures into regret. For more on how compensation should be redesigned alongside structure, see our pillar guide on how to design a sales compensation plan.

Signs Your Sales Team Needs Restructuring

Most sales organizations wait too long to restructure. By the time the friction is obvious, the underperformance has already cost a quarter or two of revenue. Five signals are usually present well before the leadership team formally takes the question up.

Quota attainment has compressed. The top performers used to blow past quota; now even they barely hit it. The median rep is well below quota. The bottom quartile is in coaching, performance plans, or attrition. When attainment compresses across the entire team, the structure is usually wrong, not the people.

Territories feel uneven. Some reps run out of pipeline; others can’t keep up with their patch. Reps complain to managers about geography, segment, or account assignments more often than they used to. The strongest reps quietly negotiate for the best territories, and the rest tolerate what’s left.

Customers experience handoff friction. Deals stall in the gap between sales, customer success, and account management. New logos churn at higher rates than expected. Expansion revenue underperforms. The team structure looks specialized on paper but creates seams that customers fall through.

New strategy is ahead of the org chart. The company has launched new products, entered new segments, or moved upmarket, but the sales team is still configured for the old motion. Reps are selling into territories the company no longer prioritizes, with quotas tied to a previous strategy.

Comp plan results no longer match strategic intent. The plan still pays out roughly to budget, but the behavior it rewards has drifted from what leadership wants. This is often the loudest signal that restructuring is overdue, because it shows that even the financial design has stopped aligning with the business. Disciplined plan evaluation, tracking payout against budget, attainment distribution, and the percentage of reps reaching quota, surfaces these signals before they compound into bigger problems.

AI tooling is changing which roles still make sense. With outbound prospecting AI, AI-augmented research and discovery, and conversation intelligence reshaping rep workflows, the role definitions a sales team was built around two or three years ago may no longer match how reps actually work. Companies that haven’t restructured around AI-augmented profiles often find their SDR-AE-CSM specialization producing seams that AI tooling can close. The signal is when reps are doing work AI can do better, or when AI is creating capacity that traditional role boundaries cannot absorb.

The 5-Step Sales Team Restructuring Process

The framework below organizes restructuring into five sequential steps. Each step makes a discrete decision that constrains the next. Skipping or rushing a step is the most common cause of failed restructures.

Step 1: Diagnose the Problem

Before any roles move or territories shift, leadership needs to be clear about what the restructure is actually solving. Performance gaps, growth bottlenecks, strategic shifts, and efficiency pressure all justify restructuring, but they call for different design choices. A restructure to fix performance focuses on territory rebalancing, manager span, and underperformer reassignment. A restructure for growth focuses on adding specialization layers (SDR, AE, CSM) or new segments. A restructure for strategy focuses on aligning roles to new products, segments, or motions. A restructure for efficiency, increasingly the dominant driver under Rule of 40 pressure and PE-led optimization, focuses on reducing cost-of-sales, tightening manager spans, and removing specialization layers that AI tooling can replace. Get the diagnosis right and the design follows.

Step 2: Model the New Structure

Once the diagnosis is clear, the new structure can be modeled. This means deciding on roles, territory or segment definitions, reporting lines, and manager spans. The strongest models are built from data: workload by territory, deal volume by segment, ramp time by role, and manager span (six to ten direct reports remains the durable best practice for first-line sales managers, though AI tooling has stretched the upper end somewhat by reducing the manual data-gathering burden). Modeling on org-chart aesthetics rather than data is the most common second-step mistake. Optymyze’s territory planning checklist walks through the data inputs that should drive territory design specifically.

Step 3: Align Compensation

Restructuring without rebuilding the compensation plan is the single most expensive mistake in this process. New territories mean new quotas. New roles mean new pay mixes. New segments often mean new commission structures. The plan that was right for the old structure will not produce the right behavior in the new one. See the pillar guide on how to design a sales compensation plan for the end-to-end framework.

Step 4: Communicate the Change

Communication should cascade: leadership first, then managers, then reps. Surprising the team in a single all-hands is the most reliable way to lose top performers and create a wave of resignations. Reps need time to understand their new territory, their new quota, their new pay plan, and what is expected of them in the first 90 days. The clear compensation plan communication guide covers the cadence and tactics that hold teams together during transitions. Sales rep management covers the cadences and coaching practices managers should run to hold the team together during transition.

Step 5: Stabilize and Measure

The first 90 days after a restructure are the most important. Track ramp time, pipeline coverage, attainment trajectory, and attrition. Resist the temptation to make further changes during this window unless something is clearly broken. Restructures take time to settle. Declaring victory or failure too early creates churn the team cannot absorb.

Change Management During a Sales Restructure

Restructuring is as much a change management exercise as a strategic one. Three practices separate restructures that hold from those that fall apart.

Communicate the why early and consistently. Reps will tolerate change they understand the reason for; they will not tolerate change that feels arbitrary. Leadership should be able to articulate the diagnosis (Step 1) in plain language, and managers should reinforce it weekly during the transition.

Protect the top performers first. The reps the company most wants to keep are the ones with the easiest options to leave. Their territory changes, comp plan adjustments, and account reassignments should be modeled with retention in mind. A restructure that loses the top decile pays for itself in lost revenue many times over.

Keep the operational layer steady. While the structure is changing, the systems behind compensation, quota tracking, pipeline management, and reporting should be as stable as possible. Adding system change on top of organizational change multiplies risk in ways that are hard to undo.

Common Sales Restructuring Mistakes

Three failure patterns recur across restructures that don’t deliver. Restructuring without diagnosing the root cause produces an org chart that looks different but solves nothing. Restructuring without rebuilding comp rewards behavior that no longer matches the new strategy. And restructuring too frequently, more than once every 18 to 24 months in most B2B contexts, prevents the team from ever stabilizing in a new structure long enough to perform.

A fourth, less obvious mistake is restructuring on the wrong dimension. A team that needs better coaching gets restructured into smaller manager spans. A team that needs better territories gets restructured into specialized roles. The diagnosis in Step 1 should constrain the design choices in Step 2. Skipping Step 1 is what produces dimension mismatches.

Sales Restructuring FAQs

How often should a sales team be restructured?

Most B2B sales organizations restructure every 18 to 36 months on average. More frequent than that prevents the team from stabilizing; less frequent risks falling behind strategy. Major business shifts like an acquisition, segment expansion, or new product line can warrant more frequent restructuring. AI tooling and efficient-growth pressure have compressed this cadence at many companies in 2025 and 2026, with some restructuring annually as roles, quotas, and tooling change faster than the historical pace allowed for.

How long does a sales restructure take?

Modeling and design typically take four to eight weeks for a team of 30 to 100 reps. Communication and rollout add another two to four weeks. Stabilization runs 90 days from the day the new structure goes live. Total elapsed time is typically four to six months from kickoff to fully stable operation.

Should compensation change at the same time as the structure?

Yes, almost always. Restructuring without updating the compensation plan rewards behavior that no longer matches the new design. Quotas should be reset for new territories, pay mixes adjusted for new roles, and commission structures aligned with the new sales motion.

How do you protect top performers during a restructure?

Model their post-restructure earning potential against their current OTE before finalizing the new structure. If the new design lowers a top performer’s expected earnings without a clear strategic reason, the design is probably wrong. Preserve account continuity where possible and communicate territory or quota changes in person, not through a memo.

Sales team restructuring is one of the few operational levers that can reset performance, growth, and culture all at once. The leaders who get the most leverage from it treat it as a five-step process, not a one-time event, with compensation redesign and change management as core parts of the work, not afterthoughts. At Optymyze, sales performance management provides the operational layer that makes restructures stick: governed data, flexible territory and quota modeling, and the ability to evolve compensation plans alongside the new structure rather than chasing them after the fact.

A sales rep is a sales rep, right? Whether you call them consultants, business developers, agents, or salespeople, you expect your sales representatives to be adaptable and well-informed: a completely reliable interface between you and your clients. You expect them to sell. It’s a tall order, no matter what the industry.

But sometimes their job calls for qualities that go over and above this already impressive list. When it comes to the medical field, your reps are more than sales mavens. They’re lifesavers.

Part healthcare specialist, part lobbyist and full-time sales professional, the medical sales representative is part of a unique breed. A dedicated sales rep will not only excel at product sales, but also make presentations to healthcare professionals, arrange appointments, organize conferences for medical staff, keep up to date with the latest clinical research, constantly monitor the competition’s moves, and stay on top of ever-changing national legislation and healthcare coverage. Sounds complicated? It is, and we’ve only skimmed the surface.

For those in charge of selling medical equipment, more difficult challenges lie ahead. The complex sales cycle, coupled with high acquisition costs, demand technical and medical know-how. The rep must understand the product well enough to supervise its installation in the operating room—with the surgeon and other medical staff present. And he or she must be prepared to adapt or change the product at all times, should a malfunction appear.

With so much on their plate, medical sales reps require a compensation plan that corresponds with their contribution. But is incentive compensation enough to motivate and retain such representatives? The answer will become clearer once we take a closer look at a medical sales rep’s career path.

1. Getting in Can Prove Quite Difficult

Normally, a sales rep position requires little more than a high school diploma or an associate’s degree. Nor is specific previous experience usually required. However, when it comes to medical sales, qualities many people develop in college, grad school, or specialized training programs are integral to a rep’s success. Excellent communication skills, confidence, analytical skills, and constant business awareness are only the beginning. Most candidates usually have some sort of medical background, if not a life sciences or medical degree. Previous experience working in a hospital or clinic is also par for the course.

These kinds of prerequisites can discourage new candidates while also fostering more attachment between experienced reps and their current employers. Establishing a clear and promising career path, and using a clear compensation plan can slow this trend and also make the domain more attractive to future talent.

2. Training Takes Longer

Due to the fact that companies that focus on medical sales look for deeply informed candidates, future reps might be discouraged to find out that many companies have prolonged training processes in place. Some organizations require that each person on the sales force spend time with an experienced medical sales representative before gaining his or her own clients or territories, as part of a shadowing program. Others simply place new hires at desk jobs before moving them into an actual sales role.

While a candidate applying for a manager position may easily expect some amount of training, the idea of continuous professional development might not sit so well with those interested in medical sales. Clear communication of the job’s benefits can be a first step to easing up this process. Sales enablement programs could also provide beneficial support and coaching, especially for guiding salespeople through their first deals. But in the final analysis, it’s the companies that implement clear, strategic compensation plans, on top of sales enablement programs, that will bring talented reps in the door and gain their trust and loyalty.

3. The Work-Life Balance Can Be Problematic

Imagine that you’ve recently begun to work for a medical device company, and one of your first real contacts has just turned into one of your first sales. You’ve closed the deal. Now…off to enjoy the bonus, right? Not quite yet. Remember: in this domain, not only is the sale difficult to make, but it is also an ongoing process.

If you just sold medical equipment, here come months or years of calibration, maintenance, and possibly even training of medical staff. If we’re talking about a biopart (also called a biomaterial, the product of biomedical engineering), pulling off the sale may have required you to enter the surgical area to ensure that its specifications were identical to those requested by the medical staff. And if you sold a large kit, you may have had to sterilize parts for the operation at hand while setting aside others for future use.

Such auxiliary activities may have their appeal for the impassioned salesman or the healthcare specialist, but they can certainly create a less-than-perfect work-life balance. Extra hours are standard. And a substantial amount of time may be spent traveling from one client to another, not necessarily to sell a specific product, but to answer questions about previously sold materials. Managers need to take extra care to compensate correctly for potentially hectic work schedules, especially since freelancers and self-employed medical sales reps are rare in this field.

4. The Responsibilities May Outweigh the Benefits

Because they bring specific expertise to the sales experience, good medical sales reps are difficult to find. They’re also deeply appreciated by their customers. Over time, their knowledge only grows, at times approaching that of a healthcare specialist. But with increased expertise comes increased responsibility.

Though a rep is in no way answerable for a product’s quality, he or she does occupy a potentially thorny intermediary position between the beneficiary and the product. And the stakes can be high. Imagine, for instance, that a medical device is found to have been contaminated. The rep would stand right in the middle of the storm of repercussions: recall costs, corrective surgeries, the PR disaster, and shattered customer trust in the manufacturer.

Sometimes, a medical sales rep’s responsibilities can catch up with him or her in the future, long after the actual sale. That’s because devices or bioparts might be sold one year, only to be used years later. To ease everyone’s concerns, the rep should be armed with as much information about a product as possible before selling it.

5. Information Is Hard Won

Having to manage unexpected information is hard. So is having to deal with a lack of information, which is a pervasive problem for medical sales reps. They have to be in touch with the newest products and latest research developments (in an industry that changes by the hour), as well as what the competition’s up to, but attaining this data is never easy. The same is true when it comes to getting a hold of accurate information about legislative changes. With very few official sources to rely on, reps often turn to private networks and forums such as Cafepharma.

The official information that a rep does manage to get is therefore highly valuable to his or her employer. So is the rep, whose reports may provide market insight, and can be used during new product development. To motivate reps to continually put energy into fulfilling their extensive role, a flexible compensation plan is a must. Such a plan might include the possibility of royalty payments, should the rep meaningfully contribute to research.

6. Legislation Is Always a Concern

As many medical sales reps discover, the lack of information affects more than sales. It affects the company on all levels. Reps must be fully aware of difficult-to-obtain current legislation. They also have to keep drug formularies and similar paperwork up to date, and pay attention to any upcoming changes in the healthcare field. A change in a medical plan, for instance, may bring special taxes and obligations that the rep will need to both understand and explain.

In light of the need for this kind of documentation, a comprehensive legislation depository should be created and regularly updated. Such a depository should contain all local and federal laws that impact the field and should be easily accessible.

7. Specialization Is in High Demand

With the steady rise of new pharmaceuticals and the constant improvements being made to medical devices, familiarity is hard won. This is why most reps usually specialize in a particular medical field. One the one hand, this makes each rep highly valuable to his or her employer and to other potential employers. On the other, it means that employers have a narrow pool to pull from.

It’s difficult for a sales rep who knows everything about a certain medical device to migrate to a whole new specialty. To counter this phenomenon and maintain a top sales department, employers should consider offering courses across specializations as well as other nonfinancial rewards to their top performers.

8. There Is No Formula for Success

Since each sale involves a long-term commitment to both the client and the product, the pressure on medical sales reps is high. Add that to the fact that in many cases reps have to make their pitches in front of a professional, and you can see why self-confidence is vital.

Other vital characteristics for medical sales reps include resilience and flexibility. Making a sale in this domain does not guarantee further successes. Many times, the client has to recommend the product further, to his patients or direct customers. If the product doesn’t fare well, future attempts to approach that client may fail. This is further evidence of the need for continuous job training.

If you’re a sales leader in a company that focuses on healthcare, you understand the challenges of replacing highly skilled reps, and know their loyalty affects your organization’s success. You can further your efforts to gain that loyalty by acknowledging the skills and nurturing the potential of each member of your sales force.

A flexible and generous incentive compensation plan, on-demand access to data, and top-notch sales enablement techniques – including coaching and training – are essential to this purpose. Unlike reps in some other fields, medical sales representatives don’t see their job as a stepping stone. They’re invested in the field. Make sure they reach their potential, and your own investments will pay off.

“At the end of the day, when I think that somewhere in my territory there is a patient whose life has been improved because of a product I promote, I get a warm, fuzzy feeling and a deep sense of personal satisfaction.”

— Corey Nahman, CEO, InternetDrugNews.com

Pharmaceutical companies impact just about every American’s life. Our country is home to approximately 67,000 pharmacies, and according to a Mayo Clinic study, seven out of ten people in the United States take at least one prescription drug. From testing to production to selling to prescription, a medical product’s journey is complex and involves countless professionals.

The most significant of these professionals? For drug companies that want to stay in business, the answer is easy: sales reps. A pharma rep’s job is demanding, intricate, and at times exhausting. It requires specialized training in pharmacology as well as comprehensive knowledge of subject matters as diverse as biology and sales techniques. Succeeding as a pharma rep also takes a great deal of perseverance – not only to get the job done, but also to withstand misconceptions and misguided stereotyping.

Challenges and myths

If you’ve ever seen a pharma company hosting a banquet-room lunch for doctors and formed the assumption that pharma sales can be bought, think again. The complex relationship between reps and doctors is often incorrectly regarded as a quid-pro-quo system that starts with drug companies providing free meals and paid speaking engagements to doctors in exchange for those doctors prescribing their products. While it’s true that a strategy’s at work here, it’s not designed to woo. It’s about time – which, as we know all too well, doctors have very little of.

Often, coffee or a meal is the only avenue for pharma reps to get in front of a doctor. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of doctors won’t promote a drug they don’t like or believe in. So what’s actually happening at these lunches? The real answer is that salespeople and doctors are coming together to build a partnership focused on determining the best therapy options for patients.

That may sound like a lofty goal for a salesperson, and it is. That’s due not only to the stress of the sales process itself (which includes battling through the myth that reps lack sufficient education to interact with and inform doctors), but also because attaining and retaining a position is no walk in the park.

Many pharma reps come to the job with a background in chemistry, biology, or premed. According to the Princeton Review, pharma companies commonly demand that their sales employees have an advanced degree in the medical field. During their initial years in the industry, they often take advanced courses in pharmacology to deepen their knowledge of their company’s product line. Doing so helps them convey complex scientific and medical concepts in accessible language.

Reps may also have to learn how to interpret data and statistics so as to gain an understanding of both public and private health issues. As a primary source of information for doctors, they have to be prepared to discuss various diseases and new clinical studies, stay up to date with the competition, and thoroughly explain the qualities that make their product better than the competition.

In short, every last one of them has to become a trusted member of the local medical community.

“I love my job” vs. “I need to make more money” – a.k.a. motivation

The intensity, the intellectual challenge, and the satisfaction of helping patients may be just what draws people to this career. “You cannot get discouraged doing a job like this,” says James Bowden, a pharmaceutical sales specialist. “After all, by filling the shoes of a pharmaceutical representative, you bring a great added value to a physician and his or her patients through the drug products that you promote. Do not let anyone else tell you otherwise. That is why I’m doing what I love the most, and that is helping people live longer, healthier, and an overall better quality of life.”

In the best of all worlds, pharma reps are driven by an innate passion for the profession, and they find jobs with companies that value their unique skills and ability to build long-lasting relationships with doctors. But we don’t live in an ideal world, which means that reps’ financial satisfaction is a vital consideration.

A pharma rep’s earnings are 20-30% commission-based – a far higher rate than you’ll find in other industries. But the market is highly competitive – so much so that a “pay for performance” cult has developed and begun to take hold across other sales verticals. Recent HBR research shows that the number of companies offering bonuses or other forms of pay based on performance increased by 6% between 2014 and 2016 alone.

That sounds like great news for pharma reps, right? All they need to do in order to earn financial rewards is hit quota on a regular basis.

Of course, that isn’t as easy as it sounds. With quotas often set at unachievable heights, pharma reps are flying on a wing and prayer. Less than half will succeed – which means the majority will fail.

As you might imagine, failure is not a great bedfellow for reps, who tend to thrive on success; failure leads to frustration and loss of interest in selling your product. If you’re in a leadership position, you can avert such a scenario by instituting business processes that ensure goals are challenging but achievable – present and future – even during periods of enormous change.

How? With the right technology, for one. Advanced technology enables accurate quota management, balanced territory design, and – most importantly – forward-thinking comp plans that tap into your people’s inner motivations.

Gamification, for instance, appeals to salespeople’s competitive spirit. Visibility into individual and team performance will also light a fire beneath them; it’s empowering for reps to have access to sales and call-planning insights that indicate which doctors or institutions are likely to be most receptive to their overtures. Proper visibility also helps reps decide which doctors and institutions would benefit from more visits – and which would not. Add on a bonus calculator, which should be included with any truly robust technology solution, and reps can capitalize on these insights by projecting how much they can increase their earnings. When reps feel inspired to maximize their compensation, the company is simultaneously rewarded with better bottom-line performance.

But technology is only as good as the people who implement and use it. That means it’s vital to bring in expert staff who know their way around the tech and can help you utilize it to its full potential. These experts can conduct ongoing analyses of processes, continually gain and share insight, and cement improvement and revenue growth as an integral part of your company culture.

Beyond love and money

They’ve followed your bliss. They’re not living paycheck to paycheck. They’re energized by running from one doctor’s office to another, checking in with pharmacies, attending conferences, and taking extra courses. But something’s still missing. What is it?

Too much of the time, like many remote workers, your reps are alone. Keep them involved by fostering interactive programs; regular coaching and training sessions are a good place to start. It’s also absolutely vital that your solution can be accessed on mobile devices. The addition of social apps can encourage productive conversations and encourage reps to share inside tips and best practices. Push notifications that provide regular updates on quotas, targets, sales results, and other performance indicators can be a great tool to keep salespeople informed while fostering connectivity.

The bottom line

Pharma sales reps truly are a rare breed, and they’ve got a unique brand of responsibility to the end buyer. Just think about it: when you go to the doctor, it’s typically the pharma rep’s recommendations that end up on your prescription slip.

In such a vital field, giving these professionals the right tools to succeed can have a tangible impact on the life of nearly every American.

Big data, smart data, data lakes, data warehouses, data repositories! It seems like nowadays, the word “data” makes an appearance at every sales conference and in every article. Though this article’s no exception, it’s a little different: we’re here to help you understand these oft-confusing terms and find your way to the right solution.

Most organizations know what they want out of their sales operations, but they often struggle to transform that vision into a reality.

That’s especially tricky to achieve when you need to process large volumes of data from multiple sources. Cleaning, centralizing, validating, and analyzing data are all highly technical and intensive tasks, but the value they can bring to your company is immense.

Data storage: the first stop, but not the destination

A data lake is, in effect, a repository that allows you to store both structured and unstructured data at any scale. The main advantage of this architecture is that the data can be used in its “natural format” – i.e., without having to be structured first – for the purposes of processing, analytics, and visualizations.

Data swamps, meanwhile, are damaged data lakes that either are inaccessible to their potential audience or cannot provide any valuable information. In other words, a data swamp is a data lake “gone bad.” The line between data lakes and data swamps can be a thin one, especially since there’s a relatively low number of users who can realize the full benefits of data lakes.

While undeniably popular, neither of these concepts is particularly new or revolutionary. To perform proper data management, you’ll have to concentrate on both structure and format, which brings us to another highly used term in the data world.

One of the most common ways of storing large volumes of data, data warehouses are essentially massive repositories of integrated data drawn from one or multiple sources. Warehouses can store both current and historical data; they’re used to create reports for both sales reps and management, but also for analytics and similar operations.

In contrast to data lakes, information isn’t “thrown” into a warehouse; rather, it’s transformed, structured, and assigned a specific purpose (say, a particular business area).

Where lakes typically need an expert hand to be useful, warehouses are typically either semi- or fully automated – offering easier access for the common user as well as for company leaders who want to analyze sales figures and related information.

Your North Star: data processing

The debate over the merits of data warehouses vs. data lakes is difficult to settle. In our experience, though, the most important detail is not your storage methodology, but the way you process your data.

For example, one of our largest clients is a national telecommunications company, and they came to us with an enormous amount of data to process. What architecture recommendation did we make for them? None at all. Although we did ultimately utilize a flexible storage solution, that wasn’t one of our prime considerations.

Our client’s business units required the permanent processing of many terabytes of data that had been drawn from multiple sources in multiple formats. The large volume of kickouts and the consequently low quantity of valid data made both storage and usage into major issues.

The first step was establishing best practices for processing the data. It was no problem to replace our client’s legacy systems and combine their formerly disparate data sources into a single repository. However, cleanliness, not storage, was our main concern – so once we got the data in one place, we evaluated it for purity and prioritized it accordingly with logical algorithms.

With the data centralized, the next step was to make it widely accessible through our easy-to-use, code-free data management.

Suddenly, our client’s salespeople had instant access to information about customers and prospects, while management gained the power to execute accurate sales planning. This repository ultimately came to be recognized as a single source of truth for the company’s multiple business units – enabling the creation of better metrics along the way.

The point is, despite storage type and general architecture being common points of contention, they were in fact the least of our client’s problems – and they should be the least of yours, too. No matter how you’re keeping your data, if your reps and managers don’t have easy, real-time access to digestible information, all your investments in storage will be moot!

Data transformation: the wind in your sails

The concept of a single source of truth for corporate data is gaining wide appeal. However, just as a lake isn’t much good if the water is contaminated, a data repository can’t help you much if the data hasn’t been transformed into a usable format.

As many businesses have discovered, the data ocean’s perils don’t stop at processing. Even if you do have a flexible storage solution and know precisely what data is going through your system, it will eventually become obsolete. No matter which route you’re taking, new layers of information will be added constantly, making your data run deeper and deeper.

So, how can you stay afloat?

Well, instead of pushing against the current, use it to your advantage. Consolidate disparate information into a single platform so that you can analyze your data and use it as a catalyst for sales enablement. In other words, strategically transform your data into the wind that fills your sails (or sales!).

It’s great to see companies starting to discover the potential of a single source of truth – after all, we’ve been talking about it and doing it for years. However, making the best of your data requires turning it into actionable insights that can not only improve your reps’ performance, but also give you a whole new perspective on the sales organization.

Those deep and meaningful analytics are the lighthouse that helps you make port in a storm of ever-shifting data.

With our no-code Data Repository and ETL capabilities, Optymyze can handle even the most complex data management as well as extraction, transformation, and load (ETL) requirements – managing and processing thousands of data tables with hundreds of millions of records that comprise multiple terabytes of data.

We all get territorial sometimes. It’s part of being human; when someone’s territorial boundaries are violated, it naturally sparks a defensive response. That may be unavoidable in life and in love – but when it comes to sales territories, conflict doesn’t need to be inevitable.

It’s a simple formula: sales reps will cry foul whenever they feel their sales territories are distributed unfairly, triggering infighting and chaos. Obviously, fruitful territories are a big deal, given that they translate into better quota attainment and higher compensation. So it’s only natural that when salespeople think their accounts are getting taken from them without good reason or that other reps are overstepping their designated territories, tensions flare up. Of course, if you’re a sales manager, preventing this scenario should be one of your top priorities.

Although some healthy competition is natural – even beneficial – fights over territories are bound to affect team cohesiveness and, ultimately, your bottom line. That’s why it’s vital to ensure that your sales territories create a collaborative environment that motivates your reps to work toward achieving your company’s goals.

Go beyond geographic territories

Approximately 20 percent of sales organizations still delineate their sales territories using only geographic dimensions. This is a useful strategy for preventing conflicts between salespeople, but it’s also a simplistic approach that can result in ambitious sales reps getting stuck with territories that aren’t particularly active – a situation that not only creates resentment but also prevents them from realizing their full sales potential. Fortunately, there are other territory management strategies that can prevent infighting more effectively while getting more productivity out of your reps.

Dividing sales territories optimally starts from the ground up. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for sales force structuring; rather, there are numerous possibilities, each with pros and cons. A well-designed structure may incorporate elements from any or all of them, just as long as it outlines clear selling roles and responsibilities while leveraging your people’s skills and experience with specific industries, types of accounts, or products and services.

Remember: there’s no such thing as a perfect, immutable sales structure. As businesses expand, merge, go international, or add more segments, their sales structures need to be adjusted accordingly – and that isn’t always easy since such major changes often result in territory infighting. For instance, going through a merger without a sound process for realigning territories can result in some areas becoming flooded with your reps, who end up competing with one another for accounts. It won’t be long before those conflicts between your salespeople turn from isolated events into a nagging problem.

If revising your sales structure sounds like a daunting task, consider bringing in sales territory management experts who can help you eliminate territory infighting and create a more tailored sales structure, all while working toward longer-term goals such as expanding into other markets.

Approach territory planning as an ongoing process

Once you have a flexible, effective sales structure in place, the next step is implementing a territory management plan that will help you allocate resources fairly and efficiently, preventing imbalance and infighting.

No set of territories is a finished product; the need for changes, be they big or small, will inevitably present itself. It’s crucial to make rapid, data-driven decisions to account for factors such as new customers, changes in customer purchasing behaviors, and major turnover. Who should get the accounts that once belonged to the sales director who just left your company? What territory will you assign to new sales reps that will motivate them and put them in position to succeed?

The answers to such questions lie, just waiting to be uncovered, in your sales data. Which of your reps is great at chasing down new prospects and having initial conversations, and who’s best suited to demo your products and close the sale? Do some of your salespeople excel at handling large enterprises, while others have an innate capability for closing smaller deals? A strong, agile territory planning process needs this information to leverage your sales force’s skills in ways that maximize productivity, shorten sales cycles, and avert conflict.

Properly aligning or realigning sales territories also requires the ability to model various scenarios and evaluate the impact of changes before rolling them out – factoring in sales data such as workload, capacity, number of accounts, market trends, and revenue and account potential. This typically involves some collaboration, so it’s important to have a streamlined process in place that incorporates all the relevant stakeholders.

The bottom line

Territory infighting is a seemingly minor problem that can trigger enormous headaches down the road, so it’s best to have a system in place that reaches multiple levels of the organization. Start with a thoughtfully designed sales structure, and reinforce it with an agile, data-driven territory planning process that ensures optimal coverage. That way, your reps won’t ever need to argue about who’s getting the best accounts – and you’ll be able to tackle change head-on.