{"id":911,"date":"2015-09-26T13:10:52","date_gmt":"2015-09-26T21:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bobbacon.net\/blog\/?p=911"},"modified":"2017-04-26T10:04:07","modified_gmt":"2017-04-26T18:04:07","slug":"sales-role-alignment-with-your-gtm-strategy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bobbacon.net\/blog\/archives\/911","title":{"rendered":"Sales Role Alignment with your GTM Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MySoftware sales compensation models have evolved with new licensing models. The mega-deals based on multiple years of customer\u2019s projected need and licensed perpetually are now rare. More common today is the subscription license and with it a requirement to recognize revenue over the term of the contract. In the subscription model commissions are usually tied to Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR). When the minimum contract term is twelve months, MRR is annualized to determine a booking value for commission purposes. For multi-year contacts, commissions on the out years may either be deferred until the next anniversary date of the contract term or paid at time of booking based on a discounted expected revenue from future years. The discount amounts in the second case may be based on the desirability of multi-year agreements for your company or the level of difficulty in renewing the contract. Both the anniversary and discount approaches have advantages and disadvantages and the choice should be based on your Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy.<\/p>\n

If your GTM strategy favors hunter reps responsible for closing new business while upsell and renewals are handled by a different team then the \u201cpaid up front\u201d model is the better sales role alignment. This approach relieves the sales rep from having to reengage with his customer and allows him to move on to complete his primary mission of finding and selling to more new accounts. If the sales rep is of the farmer variety then paying out commission on a multiyear contract over time keeps them engaged with the customer, maintaining their relationship and paves the way for both renewal of the contract as well as upsell\/cross sell opportunities during the contract term.<\/p>\n

However, when your GTM strategy involves delayed monetization based on product use, as is the case with the conversion of some freemium models, neither of the above approaches seems optimized since both rely on the date the contract is booked. Thus the question, \u201cHow do we motivate a sales team when the commissionable event is several weeks or months beyond the\u00a0contract date? I don\u2019t necessarily have an answer but I do have a theory and would like to hear your thoughts on this issue.<\/p>\n

When product usage is the gating factor for recognizable revenue the mission of the selling organization needs to extend beyond closing the deal. \u00a0It means that in order to retain the relationship between\u00a0individual production and quota, Sales now has a vested interest in the customer\u2019s successful implementation and adoption of your product. While on the surface this seems like a good thing it also means your most expensive sales resources are engaged in tasks that are more administrative or technical, not usually in their wheelhouse.<\/p>\n

It seems to me that this scenario is highly analogous to the Partner Manager role where the contract is equivalent to a partner agreement (no revenue) and\u00a0booking of utilization are much like subsequent sell-through.\u00a0 Usually the Partner Manager role is less leveraged making their variable cost lower than a hunter or farmer.\u00a0 This role\u00a0should have a better understanding of the implementation\/adoption challenges since that\u2019s a pillar in the foundation of their selling process.<\/p>\n

So, what do you think?\u00a0 Is this GTM model better\u00a0aligned to\u00a0the compensation structure\u00a0typically used for a\u00a0Partner Manager or are there better solutions to keep your team motivated while they\u00a0drive\u00a0for customer utilization?\u00a0 Your feedback is welcome below…\u00a0 Thanks!<\/p>\n

Cheers!<\/p>\n

Bob Bacon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Software sales compensation models have evolved with new licensing models. The mega-deals based on multiple years of customer\u2019s projected need and licensed perpetually are now rare. More common today is the subscription license and with it a requirement to recognize … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"no","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,4],"tags":[90,88,13,29,91,89,12],"class_list":["post-911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sales_compensation","category-sales_ops","tag-commission","tag-icm","tag-incentive-comp","tag-sales-compensation","tag-sales-role","tag-spm","tag-variable-comp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bobbacon.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bobbacon.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bobbacon.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bobbacon.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bobbacon.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/bobbacon.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1123,"href":"http:\/\/bobbacon.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911\/revisions\/1123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bobbacon.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bobbacon.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bobbacon.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}