Ambition Mission

I recently posted a reply to a Cahnnel Insider blog about whether or not pre-sales technical folks should recieve commissions as salespeople do or in some modified form.  Here is my reply:

No commissions for technical staff, whether they assist in the sales process or otherwise.

Rather, include the technical staff in a bonus for the company’s (or sales team’s) group performance.

Also, the pre sales technical role ideally should be rotated among the technical staff on a monthly or weekly basis.  Rotation is always a good thing for the technical staff and it allows ALL staff to cheer ALL salespeople. 

If the sales team does X, then all members of the technical team get Y.

Everyone on the team is motivated to assist “Sales.”  There is no more (or less) “Us versus Them” mentality between salespeople and technical staff.  And finally, ALL staff is aligned in the direction that bringing on new customers is good for all.

Since salespeople and technical staff have hugely different motivations and personalities, commissions should never be applied to a technical staff member - in rarely, if ever, has the desired effect of putting the “carrot” in the proper place.

Matt Makowicz

Matt@AmbitionMission.com

Link to the Channel Insider blog is:  http://blogs.channelinsider.com/content001/careers_salaries/the_channel_sales_commission_conundrum.html

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 10:05 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.