Sales compensation planning in a volatile economic environment is uniquely challenging. On the one hand, there’s the need for tight budget control. But it’s also true that wellcompensated and, therefore, motivated account executives (AEs) are one of a company’s best hopes for achieving balanced growth and profitability.
After all, it’s AEs that sign deals and retain and grow existing accounts. Designing and executing compensation plans is, consequently, a careful balancing act that requires a finger on the pulse of industry trends and the economy, and a finely-tuned, responsive planning process.
We wanted to get an idea of how sales compensation is playing out in businesses across the globe, so we partnered with Benchmarkit to conduct primary research. The aim: is to benchmark B2B sales compensation across topics such as variable compensation and on-target earnings (OTE), quota assignment, and quota achievement.
The survey also focused on incentive compensation plan design and how compensation is calculated and communicated to AEs and sales development representatives (SDRs).
Our findings provide a benchmark for sales compensation management, which you can use to maximize your Sales team's performance and productivity in 2024. This includes the technology used to design, calculate, and share compensation plans; how companies determine base salary vs. variable compensation for Sales teams; and the implications of quota achievement rates and employee retention.