SDR Variable Plan- Archana Lokesh

No plan or like no benchmark is like stoned, right? Like it is kind of easily editable to based on the company's business, based on what our business is into, which is our sweet spot. For example, I was speaking to a CEO of a company who sells heavily into SMB market and pretty much they are transitioning into their medium and enterprise business now. So pretty much when they were only focused on SMB they had targets which was easily between 12 to 15 accepted opportunities. But they considered the same targets when they bought in commercial and enterprise reps. Was the commercial and enterprise rep motivated with those targets? Can they get that number? Definitely not. So when they went back and tweaked those numbers and gave a realistic target, kind of it changed the behavior of the people as well. So I think that is another part where you have to kind of understand what is my into what product am I selling? Who is my Persona? Is it finance, is it hr? Is it sales? To which segment are we selling into and what kind of transactions do we already see in inbound? So what could be an ideal number for outbound? So there is a lot of metrics that goes into this, but I think a baked plan keeping all of these factors into consideration might probably be a realistic plan. But I think inbound and outbound reps again have the same targets which is not realistic. For example, at times the inbound rep might have a target of a BDR very low numbers. But an outbound rep might have very high numbers like an SDR in couple of companies or both of these baked into one. I don't think that is an ideal way and I've never seen any rep tell me like that has worked for them. Clarity is key. Do your SDR BDR understand where they stand in the teams? What revenue are they contributing as a team? How are you aligned with the sales leader and does the sales leader see that you guys are a source of pipeline and a source of revenue? How to kind of train you on things that you fail or like may need improvement? Do you observe the patterns?

Another problem with the Spiff, like when the companies even offer is they would offer something very small which which does not probably motivate them enough. So it has to. I'm not saying that you know, offer lacks and lacks. I'm not saying offer MacBooks or you know, those things. I mean if you can probably tie that to a deal closure. But again that will depend a lot of factors. If you deal if your sales cycle is too long, they will never see that. So one thing I Would say when you're planning your steps is number one, make sure that a lot of people are at least eligible for it. At east more than 50% of people are eligible for it. They can at least see something at the end of the light. Oh, you know what, this looks achievable. It should be achievable. It should not be something which is totally unachievable. So to give you an example, let's say if your team is hitting you have a quota of eight meetings a month, eight opportunities a month, everybody's hitting that. Maybe make a quota, maybe make a spiff. Like if you hit 10, you know, which is just two more, you get this. You obviously make more money in variable if you hit those two. But yeah, if you hit 10 or you know, 11 or 12 or whatever number which you are expecting them to, you know, achieve, you know, they will achieve that. I think spiff stands for sales Performance Incentive Fund if I'm correct. Right. So you understand it's like you're kind of giving them a nudge. Hey, you know what, can you do a little more? If you do a little more, I'm going to not only pay you money, I'm going to offer you some other incentive. It could be a reward, it could be a voucher.

But I've also seen like these companies have them split into like the seniors have a different target and the juniors have a different target or probably like a junior SDR or a BDR will start off with a different ramp targets versus a senior BDR sdr. But I think having some kind of a justice made to an opportunity cost equal across the team is gonna kind of help pretty much like that is something that I would say, well as a CEO do you know what is an opportunity cost regardless of whom you.

Hire Next guest you would want to see on salespeople.

Possibly I would like to see Neetu Singh who is from actually freshworks and also she comes from Salesforce background.

So number one have one split for everybody. Second one of the thing which has worked great for me is offering everybody the same same variable structure. So let me, let me, let me say what I mean. If I'm offering somebody, let's say my, my structure is simple as that 7030 I'm offering somebody a 10 lakhs CDC. I'm offering them 7 lakhs fixed 3 lakh variable. So in, in what I've worked for me is I offer a 4 lakh variable to everybody irrespective of the fixed. The reason behind is number one if what rep A who's at a higher fixed or you know lower fixed. If they're getting me the meeting I want the meeting cost to remain the same. So I want to pay them the same variable amount if they're getting me eight meetings versus 80 meetings. Second it helps me promote transparency because now what would like you said if I could show everybody that you know what so most of the companies the way they show the numbers of the team is this is this is the achievement A hundred percent, seventy percent, eighty percent I can easily show the numbers hey you know one hundred percent this is the incentive Even if I don't show everybody knows that they're the same number so they can easily calculate that helps me you know go to sleep with that peace of mind that you know I don't have to hide anything from anybody. Everything is pretty transparent. So SDRA who is a 20 lakhs you know earning 16 lakh is fixed he's also getting the same variable amount.