Spring 2014 issue of Horizons

We have all heard many stories of good sales team members leaving companies because their compensation plans changed up every month after they blew past their sales goals. Additionally, ensure that employees are properly trained to fully excel in their current roles. As a manager or owner, the best case scenario is that your employees are more educated about their jobs than you are. While some employers hesitate to invest in employees for fear that they will leave, consider the alternative. What if they do stay with the company and they are not properly trained and developed? This is certainly not a better solution. By retaining highly effective team members, you are able to ensure that the processes you developed are properly implemented and utilized on a daily basis. What a better way to provide exceptional customer service than retaining the same team member that focuses on the same customer account time and time again. History has proven that there is a direct correlation between customer satisfaction and profitability. Your team members should want every customer or potential customer to walk away feeling completely satisfied and that they received exceptional service. Consider this scenario: If a potential customer comes in the store wanting a specific product that unfortunately you either do not carry or do not offer, would you want that customer to have the feeling of “that experience was awful and they did not have anything I needed?” Rather, a better customer experience would result in the customer thinking, “they did not have what I was looking for; however, they were extremely helpful in pointing me in the right direction and even took the extra step to help me find what I needed.”

During this time it is a good practice to evaluate your current pay structure. Allow team members to develop their own personal sales goals, and then match them up with the goals for your business. Challenge each employee to set goals that will increase sales and continually motivate your employees to achieve the goals. Step Two: Retaining Talent It’s also critically important to invest in retaining highly effective team members. During this process, determine a sales goal for each team member for the next 12 months, as well as a compensation plan associated with those goals. For dealerships, determine what your annual sales goal for new and used vehicles should be and then break that down by month. Collectively, your sales employees should have individual goals that at least match your company’s monthly goal. This same concept can also be applied to trucking companies. Rather than vehicle sales, you can set goals based on the number of loads or hours of service. The compensation package should then include base compensation if the team member reaches the goal that is then increased or decreased if they miss or exceed the goal. The key to this is to also create a minimum and maximum amount paid per unit or sales so that an employee is able to fully determine their own compensation. Once the plan is finalized and agreed on by both parties, keep that plan in place for 12 months. By doing this you have included the team members in the process and given them ownership of not only their compensation, but the profitability of your business.

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