1. Motivating a Sales Team in Challenging Times
Presented to: IAEWS Spring Member Congress
I hope this topic is NOT as relevant today as it might have been this time last year. Everybody wants to put 2009 behind us and while I am optimistic that 2010 will be better and not as challenging a year as the last one, I did found it interesting in reviewing these strategies and techniques on how to motivate a sales team in challenging times is that they can be equally valuable in times of recovery or even boom times, so my hope is that the things we will cover today, you will find useful anytime your sales needs a little extra push.
When sales are down, sales people’s anxiety runs high, especially with the top producers who are accustomed to always making their numbers and target income. Challenging times leave most salespeople not only falling short on targets and commissions, but also running low on spirit. In addition, in this kind of market, salespeople are charged with working harder for each and every sale and in many cases the skills needed to sell effectively in this environment also require change.
We are going to talk about what you can do to not only motivate the entire sales team but also and perhaps more importantly, ensure you can keep your top sales people motivated during a down economy. Contrary to popular opinion, not all sales people are purely coin operated and focused solely on compensation and motivated simply by money. Another important dimension is recognition of the individual and their personal contribution which plays to the pride, ego and status of the sales person within the company. So both compensation and recognition come into play with any successful sales motivation strategy.
I thought the best way to address this topic would be to share some of the best practices from sales managers within industry leading Job boards. So I reached out to some of the Adicio powered job board clients which include sales organizations of every shape and size from small niche players to large national and global media companies. In general, they are all faced with the same challenge: a decline in advertising revenue and economic depression, some with a decline in recruitment revenue by as much as 40% to 50. Their sales experience and motivation techniques should be more relevant to you than my personal experience at Adicio, although I will share at least one sales initiative we’ve done at Adicio that you might find useful.
Date: 3/11/2010

2. Communication & Support New Product Strategies Incentives
And The Survey Says…..
New Sales Strategies
Quotas and Comp Plans
Communication & Support
New Product Strategies
Incentives
So, I surveyed some of the leaders in our market, collected their stories and found that their motivation efforts fell into 5 broad areas, including
New Sales Strategies
Adjusting Quotas and Comp Plans
Communication & Support
New Product Strategies
Incentives
Let’s look at Specific motivational examples from each area

3. New Sales Strategies Consider any and all new sales strategies
Consolidate sales teams across geographic and product/industry boundaries
Promotes integrated packaging
Increases income opportunities for sales reps
Stimulate, reward and recognize creative deals
Encourage flexibility on sale terms & conditions
Empower sales reps to address the downward pressure on price and resistance to long term contracts
Consider any and all new sales strategies. Desperate times require desperate measures. Consolidate sales teams. If you have multiple sales channels or sales channels segmented by type of medium, such as print, or industry, or geography, consider consolidation. This not only helps incentivize integrated packaging as well as increase income opportunities for the sales reps. Example: Until recently, ALM maintained separate teams for national publications, related Web sites, and conferences and events. While sales structures for regional teams have not changed, national sales teams are now responsible for selling all products the company offers to a more targeted clientele. The sales team can be consolidated to encompass more verticals (e.g., broadcasting, hospitality, magazines, etc.)
Empower sales flexibility on sale terms and conditions: Encourage sales people to look for out of the box solutions by stimulating, rewarding and recognizing creative deals (remember in difficult economic times, everything is now negotiable, not just price, but contract term, product packaging, additional support, etc.). In tough economic times there will be downward pressure on price and resistance to long term commitments. Rather than lose deals due to inflexibility to adjust to the market, be flexible.

4. Example: ALM Law Jobs
Introduced 3 month short term contract for Recruiter Slot Package
One-time Offer
Added 6 month offer
Raised the revenue per slot sold.
Lowers the risk for client
January billings higher than prior year
Example: ALM introduced some shorter contract options for slot packages. In 2010 they introduced a three month slot package as a one-time offer (i.e. after the three months you need to renew to a 6 or 12 month package.) They also started offering 6 month packages. This has the second order benefit of actually raising the revenue per slot. It does take a bit more work for the sales team and the product has to work in order to get the renewal but it lowers the risk for new clients. The result was that their January billing in the slot packages category was above the prior year.

5. Sales Strategies Get sales focused on the market opportunities:
What industries or geographies haven’t you yet tapped?
Where is Government stimulus spending going?
What niches are under represented on your client list?
Align your sales efforts with the market demand
Focus on where there is growth What industries haven’t you yet tapped? Where is Govt stimulus spending going and how can you tap into it? What niches are underrepresented on your client list? How can you align your offering more closely with where the market demand exists, new regions, territories, or specific industry segments where employers are still hiring?

6. Example: Advance internet
New niche segment to target growing Biomedical market
Incentivized sales reps with a higher sales commission rate on all new advertisers in Pharma/Biomedical field
Offered cross-posting to other regional sites for participation
Boosted revenue and sales morale
Example: Advance Internet Expansion into Pharma/Biomedical Jobs. Advance has one geographical jb board site in New Jersey that is heavily concentrated in the Pharma and bi medical industry. Being a traditional classified site they had not adequately focused on serving this segment, but as other segments slowed, and this segment continued growth, they expanded their reach by launching an entirely new job board called Hire BioMedical. They gave the existing sales reps an incentive to sell into this new job board, the same basic products that they had been selling into the general market. In addition, to incentive other regionally based job board to tap into this new niche market, they added new Biomedical job categories on each site and gave those sales reps a cross-posting up sell to sell into both the local site as well as the Hire BioMedical site. Each sales rep was offered an incentive commission rate on all new sales and cross-postings. This helped boost both revenue and morale and it provided the company with an important growth opportunity..

7. Example: PennWell
Renewable Energy is a hot market with Government stimulus funding
Renewable energy job category was under- represented on PennEnergy job site
PennWell had a content partnership with Renewable Energy World with targeted reach into that market
EXAMPLE: One industry we have seen expansion of job categories and even dedicated job sites is in green jobs which can mean different kinds of jobs to different types of job boards. Pennwell, a trade media company in the energy market had a content partner in the Renewable energy segment, but they weren’t doing anything specific to renewable energy jobs. So they launched a child job board site to PennEnergy jobs called Renewablejobs and they shared all of their existing jobs in that job category onto the new job board. Each company sold new listings into the database. The company paid a higher sale commission rate on all new business. As a result they tapped into a growing niche market with a targeted site and garnered a significant number of new jobs and employers. The average posting rate for renewable jobs actually increased while posting rates and contract values for their existing job categories saw some declined, which they were able to off-set

8. Example: PennWell
Delivered a “child job board site” on the renewable energy world website (syndicated job database and application)
Offered an attractive trial/entry posting rate (no cannibalization on PennWell Energy job site)
Each companies sales team sold into the new job database creating competition

9. New Sales Strategies New biz vs. existing client focus
General prospecting is less productive in a down economy, so think about an inside telesales team for prospecting and low volume client activity enabling experienced reps to focus on core accounts (80/20 rule).
Analyze sales performance on year-to-year revenue and product penetration for each account and incentivize to increase penetration. Adjust commission rates on new vs. existing business.
Give reps the opportunity to reward the best clients with incentives.
Offer advertisers under contract “membership privileges” such as an add-on at a rate only available to them for a short time
If you work for a company that only recognizes results, consider what you can do to boost your numbers. However, even if the new sales strategy is not a big commercial success, keep in mind they do play a role in keeping the sales team engaged and motivated.
New Biz vs. Existing clients: Be flexible with your sales focus on new business vs. existing business opportunities (old adage that it is easier and cheaper to keep a current customer than finding a new one is even more true in difficult times) New biz sales people can help increase existing client contract values and they can learn more about the product and client with post sales involvement. Have them go back and audit the value proposition for clients that they sold to see if the product and service delivered as promised. Examine new ways your company could cross-sell or up sell products to existing customers?
Give reps. the opportunity to reward their best clients. Think "privileges of membership". Offer your business under contract an add-on at a rate that's only available to them and for a short time. Make this a program so the offer changes up every so often. (Chris Braun: Lawjobs) Ideas would include some of the products mentioned above or spotlight upgrades or perhaps some print advertising discounts.
In terms of new-versus-renewal business, if you get new sales in, that's normally commissioned at a higher rate, than if it's a renewal—let's say you renew for $10,000 but you up sell them another couple of thousand dollars there's an incentive to do that as well.
Allow sales staff to focus on core accounts. 80/20 rule: Focus on getting more product and revenue penetration of the 20 percent of accounts that make up the majority of your revenue. Look at salesperson performance on how they are doing year over year with those top accounts in terms of numbers and types of products sold. If an area is seen where revenue is down or a client appears under-served, salespeople can be incentivized accordingly to focus on these key clients, he says.
Example: Salespeople are given a list of companies either presently advertising with ALM or who are considered especially hot prospects. "The thinking behind that is we have a lot of products to sell to help people reach the legal profession. … This way it gives the salespeople more time to spend with … our core clients—those clients who spend more money with us—and really help them get more involved in their marketing of their products to the legal profession.
Segment the type of sales effort: ALM has invested in a "telesales" group that will handle all of the prospecting and selling to accounts that only buy one or two ads a year. Because such work can take up a great deal of an experienced salesperson's time, "I'd rather have an inside telesales team prospecting constantly, making those calls and doing that research.
ALM, which publishes news and information primarily in the legal and commercial real estate sectors, recently revamped its sales process to focus less on general prospecting and more on building relationships with core clients. Along with this has come a new emphasis on selling across geographic and product boundaries.

10. Be flexible and reasonable on adjusting quotas and comp plans
Set and reset realistic sales goals to address changing market
Focus on commissions
Accelerated commission rates at certain levels increases productivity and aligns pay with revenue generation
Be flexible and reasonable on adjusting quotas and comp plans.
Set and reset realistic sales goals as the market changes. Example: Las Vegas Review Journal has a new commission plan to set goals to budget at one amount per month, and with a higher commission, accelerator level if the reps hit last year which was considerably higher.
Focus on commissions: It may seem obvious, but it's important to note that commissions are a great way to increase productivity in a time of shrinking staffs. Any changes made to pay structure should involve increasing commission, Pay structure needs to be based on what you revenue is brought in. If you generate more, you'll get more."
Base salaries generally stay the same, but opportunities for making money have increased. Commissions can be structured percentage-wise to encourage certain types of selling. Base salaries should generally only increase at the rate of inflation, however in a poor economy a lot of people are worried about keeping their jobs, so in that sense, the incentive on base salary is already there.
Create an accelerated commission rate at or near quota so that revenue above plan is yields higher commissions. This incremental cost is funded via the incremental revenue.
If you have a threshold of achievement before a minimum commission is earned, evaluate whether it can be lowered or suspended for a period.

11. Example: Las Vegas Review Journal
New commission plan sets goals to budget at one amount per month
Offers an accelerator rate if the rep can hit last years monthly number
Set and reset realistic sales goals as the market changes. Example: Las Vegas Review Journal has a new commission plan to set goals to budget at one amount per month, and with a higher commission, accelerator level if the reps hit last year which was considerably higher.

12. Communication & Support
Focus on the long term
Build relationships with clients:
Put your sales people on your clients recruiting team: Biweekly conference calls, focus on metrics to improve results and ROI, discuss industry event and share news.
Focus on Business Development, not orders
Internal communication
Train and educate and support reps in the field
Focus on the Long Term Remind yourself and your team that business is fundamentally cyclical. Things will improve and you need to be well positioned when it happens. Need to provide focus beyond the current quarter. Establish your company as a long term partner and valuable member of their recruitment strategy and team, even if it means revenues don’t go up immediately. (Chris Braun: Lawjobs).
Build relationships: Relationships are key, and even more so in a down economy, they're more important than ever because everyone is trying to get the same dollars. So we make sure we go over and above to ensure everything is done correctly for the client. Both personally and professionally we all need to lean on our networks in tough times. That doesn't mean harassing your customers for business. It does mean having the courage to call them and talk about how they're doing even if you know they don't have immediate business. See if there's some other way you can help them. (Chris Braun: Lawjobs) Share with prospects and clients alike, in broad terms, what you're hearing from other clients. Be a resource they'll remember when things improve. (Chris Braun: Lawjobs)
Focus on existing clients: You've got to keep your current clients happy. That means spending a lot more time making sure that the sales reps are doing what they are supposed to do, Hold biweekly conference calls with clients to go over advertiser data and comments. Keep clients informed of important developments such as industry news and make sure they know that you’re staying on top of it.
Structure sales around the need to spend time with clients. Clients are increasingly looking beyond just buying ads. As ALM continues to move more into custom publishing and events, as well as providing detailed return-on-investment data to advertisers, salespeople must be able to spend time with clients seeking to adopt more sophisticated marketing techniques.
It helps put your salespeople on your client's teams. You want your salespeople to be recognized as concerned with business development, not someone who's coming in and saying, 'I've got a space closing next week, [and] I've just got to get to x amount of $ in sales.
Focus on metrics: With a focus on performance tracking and sales strategies customized to meet advertisers' shifting needs, the skill set required of management has changed. Make sure your sales people are very comfortable with metrics. Train your sales team to use metrics to find ways to improve clients results. This will requires close monitoring of clients advertising data and the ability to quickly interpret and act on information and be able to explain these results to clients. If there is a reason clients are not getting the results they expect, we need to be able to tell them why.
Find long-term projects: Often sales people gravitate towards the quick wins and low hanging fruit. Providing an incentive for finding and closing long-term projects and contracts, may mean a change in the sales compensation. Provide the incentive to develop business projects.
Internal Communication: Sales managers need to talk to their teams even more now to find out what they're going through in the trenches. Recognize the challenges but don't allow that to become an excuse for lax effort.
Train and educate: Make training salespeople a priority. It is the job of the sales staff to advise and lead reluctant advertisers into new revenue opportunities, and this must start with an effective internal training program. We have specialists go out … with the salespeople … for the first few times so they can learn the ropes, because if the advertiser is asking questions, and the salesperson does not feel comfortable, he or she is not going to make that pitch again.

13. Example: Raycom Media
Recruitment Specialist conducts HR Breakfasts in local markets
Helps the sales reps learn the ropes and hear what is going on with employers
Gives the local rep a reason for follow-up and contract renewal
EXAMPLE Raycom which has a joblink job board on 40 TV broadcast stations come nto each market to help the local sales reps by Hosting a HR breakfast. They talk about HR related issues, give them an opportunity to meet the on air talent and then they video tape each employer and put the 30 sec spot featuring that employer on the air as well as on the web site.

14. New Product Strategies
Gives sales reps incentives to offer for new products: special packages for a certain types of products for certain period of time
targeted banner ads on the job search results page based on keyword as a teaser or in response to price pressure or create newsletter with ad units that can be sponsored or bundled with product packages
Gives sales reps additional reason /cover to call and engage clients
New products/packages/offers signals to clients you are continuing to look for ways to grow their business.
While I'm mindful of the tendency of sales people to blame poor performance on the product it is true that in a space that is changing as rapidly as our we need to be perceived both internally and externally as forward thinking and innovative. 
Incentivize newer products with special packages: As ALM continues to branch out into new online products and virtual events, sales teams are given the opportunity to offer special incentives to clients as a way to get them to sample these options. Offer special packages for certain types of products for a certain period of time, for example, banner ads on the job search result pages which can be targeted based on the search parameters as a teaser and as a response to price pressure. 
The launch last summer of a weekly newsletter which now has about 2,000 subscribers and continue to grow by about 200 recipients per month. It includes ad units that can purchased individually (and therefore sold by any rep in the company) or bundled with a posting package. We're working on improvements to profile these subscribers for advertising sales (note that these will be industry specific demographic type qualifying questions.) ALM
Keep introducing new products/packages/offers. This signals to clients and staff you're continuing to look for way to grow the business, that you're playing for the long term not giving up and it gives reps cover for reason to call clients. (Chris Braun: Lawjobs)

15. Example: Las Vegas Review Journal
Publish 5 special jobs sections a year
Sales reps can suggest and select article topics that tie in advertisers
Reps are spiffed to sell the special sections
Example: Las Vegas Review Journal: They publish 5 special Jobs sections a year and they run behind the Business Section on Sunday. They give the sales rep a fun/different publication to sell, extra spiffs, and they get to help with the article selection. The articles are written by our Special Sections Staff so the stories are positive, selected by us, and give us an edge with the advertiser. We publish the section in the Review Journal, in El Tiempo (all in Spanish) and online.

16. Example: Adicio Careers Pro Edition
Developed lower cost of entry and ownership for job board platform
Sales reps engaged in definition of product to ensure market fit and value proposition
Opened up new pipeline of opportunities for SME market
Example Adicio: developed a Professional edition of their high end Enterprise product which enabled a lower cost of entry and ownership for job boards. The Sales organization was included in the defining of the product to ensure the enterprise capabilities and resulting contract values were not cannibalized, and to ensure they understood the differences in the offering, as well as to ensure that prospects which had previously stalled due to price or the economy, could be re-engaged with a strong proposition. It helped fill a new pipeline of opportunities. Reference AIM job Board launch.

17. Example: IEEE Job Site Launched Virtual Career Fair
Sales incentivized to find new biz advertisers /sponsors
Sponsors converted to ongoing Job Packages which boosted existing revenue quotas

18. Incentivize creatively Sales goals through games & contests,
Incentives
Incentivize creatively
Sales goals through games & contests,
Time based around goals / forecast
Incentivize creatively: incentivize by setting sales goals through contests. Set bonus levels based on achieving a certain percentage of or above a target goal, then if sales reps hit the number, provide either a monetary or some kind of gift reward.
To kick start sales in a poor period, use time-based incentives to motivate salespeople around particular goals. Evaluate your forecast for downturns in revenue and offer to the sales reps an extra commission or percentage if they hit target for that month.
Games & Contests We’ll give out an American Express gift check or a [store] gift card.” Usually, he says, these special incentives are tied to getting contracts for We will do a sales contest around that, trying to beat sales from last year.

19. Example: Las Vegas Review Journal
3 games / contests per year
Vegas Town: Candy land game
Horse derby racetrack
Bunny Hop
Gift cards and cash
Example: Las Vegas Review Journal: organizes 3 games/contests per year. Last year they did Vegas Town (a play like CandyLand) with a giant colored "CandyLand" board on the wall in Classified. The sales reps received points to move their game pieces for products/services they sell. We also give out $5 and $10 giftcards to Target and WalMart for mile stones around the board. Not huge amounts, but the reps love the giftcards. Several of the reps used them for stocking stuffers for their kids at Christmas. They also had LVRJ Horse Derby (giant racetrack)--everyone got to design their own horse and then moved their horse down the track as they sold 1/4 pages, online banners, etc. And now They are playing Bunny Hop--the reps get points for eggs and inside the Easter Eggs are money and candy, and they also move their Easter Bunnies (not politically correct I am sure) down the grass track. By the way, we have several bunnies with stripper names, like Holly Madison. Only in Las Vegas right?

20. Set a threshold for the whole team to hit Product Based
Incentives
Team Based
Set a threshold for the whole team to hit
Product Based
Bonus or extra commission above regular comp for achieving new product sales
Generates higher return than contests
Motivates sales reps to learn new products
Team Based contests: If you're going to run a contest, make it an all can win type. This can be done by setting a threshold (everyone who closes 5 sales wins and the one with the most sales gets a kicker) or make it a team effort (if the group reaches 15 sales everyone wins.) Contests can be used to build teamwork AND competitive spirit.
Celebrate and recognize the wins: Example: At Raycom the Classified ad manager passes a note to the Sr. VP on noteworthy wins or efforts who then makes a personal call to the sales individual to commend them on a job well done and then the VP also sends an to the entire team thanking the sales rep for their effort. This doesn’t cost anything and it builds moral.
This year Raycom ran a contest for the most sales over a 60 day period with an all expense paid trip to the Bahamas for the top seller. The cost of the award was small compared to the incremental revenue.
Product Based Incentives Move the emphasis away from general incentives based on total sales figures to product-based incentives that allow for a more targeted rewards structure. If digital sales are growing, we would suggest more online opportunities. Is there an online newsletter? Is there more space on the Web site? Is there more you can offer? If that's where the dollars are flowing, that's where the reps go, too, but they also have in mind that they've got to keep that flagship print publication going.
If your goal is to motivate everyone, try to incentivize around certain products. Use a new product opportunity for any salesperson to make an extra commission or bonus amount on top of his or her regular commission for each advertiser to which that salesperson sells the new product. This works better than contests, because in the case of contests, when you have 20 salespeople, there's always one or two people going for it, while the rest don’t fel like the can win and they become demovitated. Instead, you can get everybody pulling in the same direction by using product-level incentives, which don't differentiate the top performers and levels the playing field and get everybody go in that particular direction."
For example, consider a sales team of 10 people. If a contest rewards a top seller with $1,000, and he or she sells five new products while the other 9 people (believing there is no way they can catch the star seller) sells only one new product each, you've sold 14 new product sales. If, however, everyone feels just a little more motivated, and sells two, then you've sold 20 total.
Another advantage of the product-based approach is that it motivates salespeople to embrace new ideas and techniques and learn new products. This is especially useful with concepts such as pay for performance models which can be intimidating for those rooted in straightforward pay for listing selling strategies.
Product-based incentive tends to work better because everybody adapts pretty well, and once they've sold a new product a few times, they feel comfortable pitching it. So it achieves two objectives: It helps them get on the learning path faster, and they feel they are getting an incentive to do that learning.

21. Q&A?

22. Thank you!