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Recent Posts
- Deriving Historic Pipeline Data Without Snapshots: A Novel Approach
- Modeling Commission Calculations in Excel
- Ever Wonder Why the Capitalization of Your Acronyms is Wrong in Your Database? (and how to fix them… )
- Confused About Funnel Conversion Rates?
- New and Improved Capacity Planning Model
- Size Matters for the Top Sales Leader’s Comp
Recent Comments
- Bob Bacon on Modeling Commission Calculations in Excel
- Danielle Crowley on Modeling Commission Calculations in Excel
- Aaron L Fung on Modeling Commission Calculations in Excel
- Bob Bacon on Modeling Commission Calculations in Excel
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Archives
Author Archives: Bob Bacon
Deriving Historic Pipeline Data Without Snapshots: A Novel Approach
In the realm of CRM management, the quest for historic pipeline data is often met with reliance on periodic snapshots meticulously created by seasoned administrators. However, encountering a CRM system devoid of such snapshots presents a unique challenge, as was … Continue reading
Modeling Commission Calculations in Excel
During a recent consulting engagement I found myself once again re-inventing a formula in Excel for modeling commission calculations to estimate the cost of the plan at various points above and below 100% attainment. This task is complicated by the infinite variations … Continue reading
Ever Wonder Why the Capitalization of Your Acronyms is Wrong in Your Database? (and how to fix them… )
Maybe I’m a little OCD but when I look at a database of account names and find capitalization inconsistencies it leads me to think that those people responsible for data quality aren’t doing a very good job. Users who add … Continue reading
Posted in Sales Ops
Tagged acronyms, Bob Bacon, Data Quality, DQ, ETL, proper, sales ops, salesforce, SFDC, SFDC cleanup
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Confused About Funnel Conversion Rates?
What is a conversion rate? A sales / marketing conversion rate is the percent of leads or opportunities that are converted from one stage to another. Simply stated, if we have ten opportunities in one stage and eight of them … Continue reading
New and Improved Capacity Planning Model
A few years ago, I wrote this article on capacity planning with an approach that capitalized on regional management buy-in to pave the path to achievement. Since then I’ve had several requests from Sales leaders to expand and improve the model as most of them are in small start-ups … Continue reading
Size Matters for the Top Sales Leader’s Comp
CEOs, CFOs and CROs are usually very involved in determining the on-target earnings (OTE) for the Sales leader role and they understand that the size of the Sales team matters. In addition to size OTE is driven by competition for … Continue reading
Posted in Sales Comp, Sales Ops
Tagged ACR, BCR, Commissions, Incentive Compensation, sales compensation, Variable Compensation
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How to Convert Your Regional Targets into Better Rep Quotas
Let’s assume for a minute that your Board of Directors and executive leadership have agreed on a strategy for the coming year. This strategy usually includes specific strategic goals (e.g. revenue targets). Let’s further assume that your Finance organization has … Continue reading
Posted in Sales Comp, Sales Ops
Tagged Capacity Plan, Capacity Planning, Commissions, Quotas, sales compensation, Variable Compensation
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Sales Role Alignment with your GTM Strategy
Software sales compensation models have evolved with new licensing models. The mega-deals based on multiple years of customer’s projected need and licensed perpetually are now rare. More common today is the subscription license and with it a requirement to recognize … Continue reading
Posted in Sales Comp, Sales Ops
Tagged commission, ICM, Incentive Compensation, sales compensation, sales role, SPM, Variable Compensation
4 Comments
Measuring Sales Operations – A Selfie
Sales Operations teams typically produce and analyze dozens of metrics and KPIs related to the productivity of the sales team or qualitative measures regarding other aspects of Sales. Rarely is qualitative and quantitative analysis focused on measuring Sales Operations. We never take a selfie … Continue reading
Posted in Sales Comp, Sales Ops
Tagged Commissions, ICM, Incentive Compensation, sales compensation, sales operations, sales ops, SPM, Variable Compensation
2 Comments
If Your CRM Data Really is Garbage, Clean It Up!
I recently completed another project to address our CRM data quality issues for our account records in Salesforce.com. Specific firmographic data (annual revenue, employee count and industry) determine our market segmentation and account assignments so having accurate data is critical to keeping … Continue reading
Posted in Sales Ops
Tagged #sales20, B2B, Bob Bacon, clean, CRM, D&B, data normalization, Data Quality, data.com, hoovers, sales development, sales management, sales operations, sales ops, SFDC, SFDC cleanup
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Does Sales Training = Sales Enablement?
In recent months I’ve noticed a significant increase in the attention focused on the enablement of Sales organizations. In Silicon Valley alone I find several online postings for positions for a Sales Enablement Director or VP being sought today. This … Continue reading
Posted in Sales Ops
Tagged B2B, Bob Bacon, crm adoption, enablement, leads methodology, process, sales management, sales ops
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Three Ways to Better Focus Your Sales Comp Plan
One approach to improving the focus of your sales comp plan is to carefully manage the number of components your commission plan includes. Since fewer commission plan components result in a more focused plan, how do you reduce them while maintaining alignment … Continue reading
Posted in Sales Comp, Sales Ops
Tagged Bob Bacon, commission components, Commissions, ICM, Incentive Compensation, sales compensation, SPM, Variable Compensation
1 Comment
What’s The Difference Between Sales and Sales Operations?
The difference between Sales and Sales Operations is clearly confusing to those outside of the Sales profession but I suspect it is not entirely clear to a few of us here as well. I can’t tell you how many times … Continue reading
Posted in Sales Ops
Tagged B2B, Incentive Compensation, metrics, Sales 2.0, sales compensation, sales management, sales operations, sales ops
2 Comments
Are Your Sales Stages Effective?
It’s not often that a sales manager gets to design new sales pipeline stage definitions used by an organization. It usually occurs in smaller organizations when a new sales leader is appointed and in larger organizations when a new sales … Continue reading
CRM Adoption and Metrics, Chicken or Egg?
It is widely recognized that the next advancements in sales performance will be derived from better metrics leading to more timely coaching. Many of the sales VPs I speak with acknowledge they need insightful funnel metrics to help run their … Continue reading
Posted in Sales Ops
Tagged Analytics, Bob Bacon, crm adoption, linkedin, metrics, sales operations, sales ops, sfa adoption
1 Comment
What is Sales 2.0?
I was speaking with a Sales leader last week when he asked me, “How do you define Sales 2.0?” At first I thought this was an easy question but as I formulated an answer (I try to do that before I … Continue reading
You’re hired! A check list of things to consider next…
Walking into any new job, let alone a sales management job, can be overwhelming unless you have a plan. There are a number 90 day plan for new manager templates available but these are by necessity generic in nature. For those … Continue reading
Resource Specialization: Sales Development Representatives
“Sales Development” is a description composed of two words, the discrete meaning of which is clear but in combination the definition of the phrase can be ambiguous. For example, it can used to mean sales training, as in “developing” the … Continue reading
Choosing Effective Sales Metrics
One of the more important seminars at a recent Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco involved a panel of Sales Operations experts slated to discuss the best sales metrics to track. The question of which metrics should be used for your organization … Continue reading
Sales Incentives: the Puzzle of Motivation
This 9 minute video by Dan Pink, author of DRiVE, is a humorous and enlightening white board presentation on how the same incentives can be either effective or ineffective depending on the circumstances. I know a number of sales managers … Continue reading
