Questions

Team of 5 FTE on salary. Service based creative business. Sales gets excited when deal comes in, but production sometimes says "ah, not another project". They're busy - but the company isn't near capacity. We're working on efficiencies but outside of that I want to make it where they do their job and get a base, but if they work together and meet goals as a collective - they get a bonus once per quarter. Really build a team motivated to help each other. End result: Production being excited to see sales come in. Sales guys being excited to help production move things along. All with an eye on quality. They don't have a clear picture of where we are versus our goals (problem 1) and aren't incentivized to do much beyond their job (problem 2). I've worked hard to build a relaxed, fun culture that doesn't work over 45 hours/wk - but I think it's created a bit of entitlement (problem 3) I'd think these are good metrics to track: Total bookings (we must hit sales goal) Billable ratio (must be efficient with time) Days project is over timeline (due to not PMing some clients well - make projects close faster, don't let client drag it out) Net Promoter Score / Customer happiness (quality must still exist) Afraid of making it too complicated. What do you think?

We've tried so many different models of this over the years it actually hurts to think about.

What we currently do for "core/critical" staff is we base bonuses on gross margin. We also tie a % of commission to sales people to gross margin so that there is an alignment on incentives between production staff and sales staff.

Is it perfect? Hell no. It does work the majority of the time though.


Answered 7 years ago

Unlock Startups Unlimited

Access 20,000+ Startup Experts, 650+ masterclass videos, 1,000+ in-depth guides, and all the software tools you need to launch and grow quickly.

Already a member? Sign in

Copyright © 2024 Startups.com LLC. All rights reserved.