Commission Strategies for Unpredictable Sales: How to Motivate Your Sales Team

Unpredictable sales can demotivate and discourage team members. But your company can avoid this by compensating your sales teams with incentives like dynamic commissions and other creative strategies.

The best salespeople worldwide have one thing in common: they are highly motivated individuals. Motivation, along with quick thinking, has propelled individuals like Zig Ziglar and Erica Feidner from obscurity to sales superstardom. 

As a business owner, you obviously want your sales team to reach these levels of success, but it requires more than just basic motivation. It involves creating a well-organized structure that incentivizes and supports your team. 

This is especially true when sales become unpredictable. A volatile market can make your sales reps concerned about their future, affecting their performance and sapping their motivation. 

So how can you effectively inspire your sales team through these unpredictable moments? The secret lies in designing commission structures that reward those who consistently excel in their performance. 

Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. It requires a lot of careful planning and execution to get it right. Otherwise, you could end up damaging your company's financial health or demotivating team members who need more support to improve. Read on for actionable insights into designing commission structures that help keep employees motivated through periods of unpredictable sales.

Understanding unpredictable sales

Unpredictable sales may be caused by a variety of factors, including economic downturns, changing consumer behaviors, and geopolitical factors like regional conflicts. Internal issues such as poorly trained staff and poor sales processes can also be to blame for unexpected downturns.

Sadly, unpredictable sales often undermine sales professionals by making them insecure, stressed out, and anxious. If salespeople can’t effectively predict their earnings, they may start battling a crippling fear of losing their jobs.

Traditional commission structures only make matters worse since they’re based on a flat percentage of each sale made. That’s great when times are good, but at some point, every sales rep goes through a dry spell, and that’s when traditional commission structures can become a problem. If a sales rep on traditional commission goes through a prolonged slump, they might just go home empty-handed.

Rethinking commission structures

When traditional commissions fall short, companies facing unpredictable sales should rethink their strategy. Otherwise, they might fail to adequately compensate their salespeople, which can quickly lead to dissatisfaction and high turnover.

If unpredictable sales are common in your business, the hacks discussed below can help you keep employees motivated, reduce fear, and boost retention even during downturns.

1. Tailor commissions to unpredictable sales.

To prevent unpredictable sales from incapacitating your company, consider tailoring your commissions. You can begin by using tiered commission structures that allow salespeople to earn something, even when sales are incredibly low. This provides a level of financial stability, making employees more comfortable working for your company.

Variable commissions are another solid strategy to consider. Since these incentives are determined by employee performance, they will encourage your sales reps to work harder and hit specific goals, even during challenging moments.

2. Prioritize clear and transparent structures.

In periods of market volatility, your sales team will be frayed with constant worry. But you can improve the situation not only by tailoring commissions to the circumstances but also by making sure that your compensation structures are transparent.

According to a recent report, 87% of employees prioritize working with transparent companies they can trust. Furthermore, clear commission structures provide you and your salespeople with a reliable framework for gauging and evaluating performance, even when sales are unpredictable.

Incentives and bonuses

In addition to transparent and creative commission structures, companies hit with unpredictable sales can use other methods to motivate employees and build resilient teams, including:

Non-monetary incentives 
Businesses with unpredictable sales can use non-monetary rewards like special meals, trips, and extra time off to incentivize their sales representatives.

Performance-based bonuses
Performance-based bonuses are meant to recognize and reward team members who’ve reached or surpassed pre-determined objectives. This technique will surely keep your employees excited even in uncertain times.

Recognition and awards
If your company doesn’t want to splash money on incentives and bonuses, you can publicly or privately acknowledge and appreciate outstanding employees. You may also go the extra mile and give them plaques, trophies, or medals.

Common pitfalls to avoid

Finding ways to compensate and convince employees to keep working through periods of unpredictable sales can be tricky and exhausting. And to make matters worse, specific issues can undermine your efforts and do more harm than good.

For instance, using overly complex commission structures is a bad idea since it might mislead employees into believing your company isn't transparent. When trust and transparency issues arise, you can quickly find yourself losing workers. Complex compensation structures also make it harder for you to correctly calculate each salesperson’s earnings, which further increases your odds of making costly errors.

Other pitfalls to avoid include inadequate utilization of sales data and neglect of employee well-being. You want to make sure you’re supporting your employees in every way possible, from using all available data to help them succeed to providing resources to help them through troubled times.

How can MetaGrowth help?

Unpredictable sales don’t just affect your bottom line in obvious ways. They can also quickly demotivate employees and increase their stress levels, further hindering your company’s success. Luckily, you can counter some of these negative effects by tailoring your commission structures and using additional incentives to keep your employees motivated. 

Sometimes, however, that’s just not enough. And that’s when it’s time to call in the experts.

If you’re stuck in a constant loop of unpredictable or stagnant sales and don’t know how to break free, MetaGrowth Ventures can help. Our expert consultants can help you out of that rut by leveraging our thousands of hours of experience in recruiting, hiring, and training top talent to help you build a world-class sales team. With our expertise, you can easily bypass founder selling and shift to enjoying better, more predictable sales. 

Get in touch with our team today for more information.