LIVE Roundtable: Getting Remuneration, Commission & Targets Right For Your SDR Team

We’re hosting our ninth live roundtable as part of our annual content series, around setting up an outbound sales function.

Get ideas, inspiration and advice from our panel of experts, who will share and discuss their own experiences and open the floor to questions from the audience.

In April 2021, we announced that we will be going live every month for the next 12 months, chatting about all topics relating to outbound sales and the stages of building a team. Simply register, send us your question in advance or ask us live.

Agenda:
We’ll be discussing and answering your questions around (but not limited to):

  • What targets and KPIs sales leaders and managers should have in place
  • What are SDRs really motivated by?
  • Different incentive offerings including: workplace incentives, experienced-based incentives, courses/training incentives, physical incentives, etc.
  • Should you offer money as an incentive?
  • The purpose of a commission plan, or additional earning opportunity
  • How best to manage an in-house incentive scheme

Host:
Neil Clarke – Commercial Director at Air Marketing

Speakers:
Paul Lloyd – Director at Sellerly
Matthew Blanchard – GM EMEA at Varicent
Thom Brown – Head of Sales Operations at Air Marketing

Who is it for?
Founders
Sales Leaders
Revenue Leaders
Sales Managers

ON AIR: With Owen Episode 43 Featuring Liz Fulham – CEO & Founder at TAMI

Introducing our 43rd episode of ON AIR: With Owen – our latest interview video series with honest conversation about scaling revenue, hosted by our Founder & CEO, Owen Richards.

Our 43rd guest is Liz Fulham, CEO & Founder at TAMI. Owen and Liz discuss all things Email Marketing.

Including:

  • Who TAMI are and how they can help organizations scale and go global
  • The do’s and don’ts of email marketing
  • When email marketing should or shouldn’t be a part of your marketing strategy
  • The cornerstones of B2B strategies
  • Tips to achieve higher email open rates
  • Who to target with your emails
  • What to look out for when purchasing data from data vendors
  • How to use data segmentation in your email campaigns
  • The purpose and focus areas of E-commerce

ON AIR: With Owen Episode 42 Featuring Chris Hatfield – Founder of Sales Psyche

Introducing our 42nd episode of ON AIR: With Owen – our latest interview video series with honest conversation about scaling revenue, hosted by our Founder & CEO, Owen Richards.

Our 42nd guest is Chris Hatfield, Founder of Sales Psyche. Owen and Chris discuss the ‘taboo’ subject of Mental Health, Wellbeing and Mindset, specifically in the sales industry and we’ll hear how Sales Psyche works to address and support the issue.

Including:

  • Who is Chris, who are Sales Psyche and what is their story?
  • Why it’s important to talk about mental health in the workplace
  • The ways in which feelings of anxiety can evolve when running a business and how you can harness those emotions to benefit from them
  • The changes in sales leaders’ approach, attitude & mindset towards mental wellbeing and stress management over the last 15 years
  • The misconceptions around mental health in a sales environment
  • The benefits of enrolling your sales team onto a training programme to support and develop their mental wellbeing, mindset and performance

Getting Incentive Schemes Right For SDRs

A solid incentive scheme can be a great way to encourage your team to hit those all-important targets when you work in outbound sales.

Make enough calls and bring in enough business, and you will receive a substantial reward for your efforts.

It sounds simple enough on paper, but the truth is that it can sometimes be hard to get an incentive scheme right.

Make it too hard to achieve target, and you run the risk of frustrating your team. Make it too easy, and you will lose a lot of that hard-earned turnover.

Even if you get your targets right, you need to think long and hard about the incentives you will offer.

We’ve put together this guide to help you work out an ideal incentive programme for your sales development representatives (SDRs) and what you can offer them by means of reward.

What targets and KPIs should I have in place?

Before we move into detail, we should explain the difference between targets and KPIs in relation to incentives. It’s easy to get them mixed up or use them interchangeably.

Targets are your outcomes, and KPIs (key performance indicators) are the activities that lead to an outcome being completed.

As an example, let’s take sales calls. In this case, the sales calls are the KPI, and the target is the number of sales calls you want your SDRs to achieve in a set time frame.

When you consider your targets, it’s essential to think about the following:

  • What will your KPIs be? This is dependent on your business model. Examples of KPIs you can use in sales include revenue, sales won and meetings booked
  • What will your target be? Your target needs to be attainable, but not so easy that everyone can hit it on the first phone call of the day. Make sure all your targets are:
    • Specific
    • Measurable
    • Achievable
    • Relevant
    • Timely
  • Will any other team members be involved in your SDRs hitting their target? For example, say your target is number of sales won, and your SDRs pass their opportunities through to another salesperson to close. Their commission is dependent on the success of other people. This will need to be factored into the final figures

What are SDRs really motivated by?

As we’ve touched on in earlier blogs, members of your sales team are motivated by different things. It can be easy to assume that everyone is motivated by money; after all, we all have bills to pay and mouths to feed. However, this is not necessarily the case.

Only 13% of people looking for a new job say it is because they want more money. This means there have to be other factors in play.

People in a sales environment can be motivated by:

  • Making a difference to the world
  • Career progression and development
  • Being recognised for the work they do
  • Freedom to spend time with friends and loved ones

Different motivations can lead to SDRs preferring various incentives for their work. For example, if someone is motivated by freedom, additional days off or shorter working hours can encourage them to hit their targets.

So, should I offer money as an incentive?

It honestly depends on your business and the staff that work for you. For some SDRs  – cash is still king, and they will appreciate a financial bonus for their hard work.

However, this strategy doesn’t work for all staff and can be expensive to maintain in the long term.

In the 1990s, Hewlett Packard launched performance-related pay for staff. The issue was that the targets set were too low, meaning about 90% of staff were eligible for commission. When Hewlett Packard realised its mistake and upped the targets, employees threatened to quit as they thought they were entitled to the extra incentives by default.

One thing to consider if you are offering money-based commission is how much your SDRs will be able to earn and how it compares to their base pay.

High commission and low base may incentivise your team to sell hard, but may lead to frustrated staff and high turnover. Low commission and higher base may deter ambitious salespeople, but lead to happier SDRs and improved job security.

Great sales incentives that will really motivate your SDRs

What type of incentives can you offer your SDRs that will encourage them to pick up the phone and start calling?

Interestingly, 85% of people would opt for a non-cash incentive if it was something they really liked the look of.

Here are a few of our favourites for you to consider.

Workplace incentives

These types of incentives make the working day easier and more fun for your sales team. The advantage of workplace-based benefits is that they are low-cost, making them an excellent option for businesses with a small budget.

For example, you could offer longer lunch breaks, parking spaces nearer the office or extra holidays for those who hit their targets.

You could even let your SDRs take control of the office Spotify playlist as a fun reward!

Experienced-based incentives

Experiences and outings are great incentives for staff, as they are seen as high value and are something tangible for your sales team to try and achieve.

Experienced-based incentives can range from a pair of cinema tickets or a trip to a spa through to a VIP experience at a music concert or sporting event.

The great thing about experienced-based incentives is that you can extend them to the whole team too. Has the entire sales team hit its target for the quarter? Treat everyone to a works night out!

Plus, your SDRs may document their experience on social media and tag you in, leading to extra publicity for your business.

Courses and training incentives

Some of your sales team may be motivated by the promise of personal and professional development and becoming the best version of themselves they can be.

Offering advancement opportunities can be a smart choice if this is the case. Your SDRs gain new skills to help them in their career, and you get to take advantage of what they learn in the workplace. It’s a win-win situation!

You could pay for them to complete an online course, let them have one-on-one time with a professional coach or give them paid time off to attend an upcoming conference.

Physical incentives

One of the best ways to thank someone is with a thoughtful gift, and your sales team is no exception. Providing a tangible prize works well as you can customise it to the specific team member as well as your own budget.

Tech, food, drink and gift cards are all brilliant options. One idea we love is to have lots of prize envelopes on a board in the office. The SDR picks one at random and gets a nice surprise!

In conclusion – how will you manage your in-house incentive scheme?

According to the Incentive Research Foundation, a high-quality incentive programme can increase staff performance by 44%. That’s potentially a lot of new sales leads and opportunities for your business.

Done right, an incentive programme can drive your SDRs performance and lead to positive outcomes. The challenge is working out how to implement it correctly.

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to incentive schemes. The one that is right for your business will depend on your industry, your size, the outcomes you want to achieve and most importantly, the motivations of your sales team.

Take the time to choose the perfect incentive scheme, and both you and your SDRs can reap the benefits.

If you’d like further tips on managing your SDRs, our content series will provide you with all the information you need.

Visit our knowledge hub for blogs, webinars, and podcasts to help you create a positive sales team culture that will drive results.

Gated vs non-gated content and how to use it for lead generation

What exactly is gated content?  

Gated content is any form of content that users can only access after entering some personal details – usually including at a minimum their name and email address. The user then gains access to the content and the company, in return, gets those all-important contact details for future campaigns. So far, so straightforward. Right? Well, there’s a lot more to consider so let’s have a look at how to ace gated content. 

Pros and cons of gated content 

Pros 

The pros are obvious – you’ll gain valuable information from individuals who are willing to provide their details. This will almost certainly be their name and email address but possibly a lot more depending on your gated content form. These individuals can then be added to your CRM system and if they are the right fit for your ideal client profile (ICP) could be added into a nurture follow-up campaign. If you read last month’s blog, The Know, Like, Trust Funnel, you know you’ve successfully moved the prospect down the funnel from the know stage to the like/trust stage. Excellent! Depending on the initial form, you may also find out useful demographic information about your potential customers such as location, age, job title etc which can then be used for segmentation. 

Cons 

Not everyone who lands on your gated content page will complete the form and download the content. Many will just move on. Would these individuals have gone on to become prospects/customers if the content hadn’t been gated? We’ll never know for sure. Making sure you ask for the minimum amount of information you need to nurture a lead is a good way to ensure you’re capturing the most leads possible. 

Bear in mind, however that quantity of leads does not necessarily mean quality. Although you may be driving targeted direct traffic to this download, if it is on your website it’s also visible to all users so the individual may not be your ideal customer profile. This may mean that some lead details will need to be stored but flagged as not priority individuals for your marketing & sales team to contact.   

To gate or not to gate? That is the question 

So, this brings us on to the question of whether you should gate a particular piece of content or not. Luckily there are some ‘rules of thumb’ that you can follow when deciding whether or not to gate content. Firstly, consider the type and length of content that you’ve produced. Certain types lend themselves better to gating – longer form content such as e-books are perfect, whereas standard blogs for example should almost never be gated. Think too about the stage of the customer journey, the further down the funnel they are, the more likely it is that they will be happy to enter their personal details. Gating content early in the marketing funnel can scare away prospects so having un-gated content at this stage can improve your brand’s visibility and enhance your credibility. Make sure your gated content is relevant for prospects who are near the buying stage; this may mean the content is more in-depth or specialist.   

What types of content should be gated? 

If it could be considered as ‘Premium content’ then it could be gated. A perfect example would be an e-book or guide. This will be a longer length, seen by the prospect as valuable, and offer an in-depth answer to the question they want answered. E-books will also give you brand authority and build up trust with your audience. Similarly, whitepapers will help your brand become a trusted ‘industry expert’ on a topic.  

Don’t just stick to the tried and tested though. You could gate templates, in-depth how-to guides, webinars, a free trial of your product, checklists, free consultations, analytical reports into your industry. Get creative to come up with something original for your particular industry. 

Gated content best practises  

Make sure your gated content ticks these boxes and you won’t go far wrong.  

  • Create a strong headline to ensure that prospects don’t click away. Never over promise! It’s no good offering an in-depth guide if they download it to find out it is 2 pages long.
  • Make sure the title explains exactly what they are going to get. A spammy title will lead to disappointment and a lack of trust in your brand.  
  • Ensure the content is valuable and relevant to your audience.  
  • Decide  what sort of customer information should be collected. Only ask for data that will be meaningful to you for future segmentation so you don’t deter people from completing the form. 
  • Finally, build a strong landing page to host the offer Make sure you create a strong headline, write compelling copy, and generate an easy to complete form. 

How to use the details captured  

You’ve created the gated content, it’s getting noticed, and the email addresses are piling up. What next? Make sure you segment your email lists, using any demographics you captured. Follow up campaigns can then be targeted via demographics or be based on your existing customer personas. As with any marketing strategy, measuring your success is extremely important. This data will help you understand your audience better and improve your content strategy. 

What’s next  

Gating content is a critical aspect of a content marketing strategy used to generate the leads that your business needs to grow. When done well, gating content can benefit both the individual and the business, and the key for successful gating is to produce high quality content for which your ideal prospect is willing to trade their personal information. How often you produce gated content and how much of your content should be gated very much depends on your industry and the size of your business but often less is more. If you’re new to gated content, we recommend that you start with quarterly downloads. Saving gated content for just a few carefully chosen and well-targeted and correctly positioned pieces will mean you’re soon capturing valuable leads that ultimately convert into happy customers. 

Want some help with using gated content for your lead generation campaigns? Get in touch. Give us a call on 0345 241 3038.