End of Year Review
As 2009 winds down, and I look at the P & L for the year, like many business owners I am disappointed. Clearly this has not been my most profitable year. ( I am not alone when I say that.) While some of the blame lies with the economy, much of the blame lies with me. But, instead of wallowing in self pity, I know it is time to look at what we did and develop a new plan for next year.
Over the next few weeks, I will be rewriting my business plan, and deciding which strategies need to change. I have already made a few changes and investments.
- Enrolled in Sandler Training through Trustpointe
- Changed the compensation plan for my employees to reward sales activities
- Refocused on planning which was a central part of my early business success
Over the next few weeks, there will be more changes. There must be, if I am going to be happier with my business performance next year. What about you? What changes will you make in 2010?
Hi Lorraine -
Thanks for sharing so openly your wrap-up of 2009. I, too, was not happy with how I performed as the President of my business. Early in 2009 we saw that the year was not going to turn out as planned and so mid-year we made some corrections. First, we separated from our long time VP of Sales (who had been Sandler trained). Second, we re-did our marketing plan with Marketing Edge. Lastly, I decided to invest in hiring a recruiter to find a new world class VP of Sales.
Would you mind sharing more about the changes you made to your sales comp plan? We currently have a 100% commission plan, but it rewards only for the result and we had terrible results this year. I’d like to have a system that rewards for A) prospecting calls to uncover pain, B) prospecting meetings with pain funnel, C) requests for quote with budget, and D) decision/order from the customer. I am worried this will be too complicated for salespeople to understand and for accounting to manage for payment. How does your plan work?
Best Regards,
- Rob
We are a production envrionment. So everyone has client projects. Our salary strucutre pays for work done on client projects. Our commission structure provides incentrive to bring prospects to the company, and help maintain the relationship, regardless of whether you work on the project.
It is confusing, if you aren’t set up like we are, but my web designer may run across a PR opportunity. He will earn commission if we earn the sale, and has an incentive to stay in touch with the client, even though he doesn’t have any assignent. It brings joint ownership of clients and projects, so it is a win/win, not competitive envrironment.