New system ensured salespeople focused on profitable accounts

While researching ways to boost closing rates, we realized a lot of our salespeople were spending time with high-maintenance prospects who weren’t generating a lot of business.

So we reworked our comp, segmenting buyers based on how lucrative their accounts were.

This way, salespeople would be rewarded based strictly on how much revenue they brought in, which we hoped would result in them spending more time with top-tier prospects.

Learning how to climb the ladder

The new comp broke customers down into three tiers, based on annual purchase levels and buying potential.

Salespeople who closed continuous business with top-tier customers were rewarded with major bonuses.

Second- and third-tier accounts offered slightly less, and bottom-tier customers resulted in minor bonuses.

But we also gave reps incentive to work with lower-tier prospects, by offering to “promote” those prospects to a higher tier if purchase levels grew along the way.

Result

Now sales are up, reps are earning higher bonuses, and they’re managing their time more effectively.