We have talked a lot about how configurations and complexity affect an organization, but often we forget to look at customer-facing roles. While managing product complexity is important for product teams and production teams, it should also extend to the sales force.
At the end of the day, the number one mission for your sales team is to SELL. And often this push for revenue brings additional complexity back into the organization through new one-off configurations salespeople have promised to customers. Even worse is that these configurations might be one or two small changes away from a very popular and maybe more profitable configuration.
Product configurations can be used to shape not only customer demand but also sales behavior. Using a set of pre-ranked configurations based on metrics such as margin, days to sell or current inventory level, you can offer your sales team a structured plan that incents sales through tiered commissions.
Instead of a flat percentage-based plan, you can offer higher commissions for selling highest-ranked configurations and offer less for lower ranked. Configuration-structured commissions will guide the sales team naturally to offer products that bring them higher commissions. When customers specify a product with 5 or 6 key options and maybe 3 or 4 low-priority or nice-to-have items, the salesperson can offer them a comparable product that matches their key needs but differs slightly on a few more flexible options. Customers still get their key needs met, the sales team achieves higher commissions, and the organization guides sales toward more desirable product configurations.
Comments Off