DemandScience Scales their Sales Commissions Program with Performio.
About
DemandScience is a global B2B data company that partners with customers to upgrade their sales pipelines. Their accurate data and predictive insights enable B2B sales and marketing professionals to identify, activate, and convert the right buyers at the right time and achieve their growth goals.
The Challenge
Two dedicated finance team members were responsible for tracking commissions manually using Excel. Overtime, this became very cumbersome as they grew from 4 sales reps to more than 150 sales reps in 5 years. There was limited visibility for sales reps and frequent disputes because it was very difficult for them to understand their commissions. Some reps are paid on bookings and some on invoicing. Sales Development reps get compensated on meetings held and attribution for bookings. Account Executives have an annual target, product specific commission rate, plus annual, longer term contract commissions. The Strategic Account team has an account list, renewal target, and growth percentage which gets a specific commission rate. They did not have a dashboard to view their plans and results and it was hard for the reps to trust the commissions and feel comfortable. Doing these calculations in Excel at scale was very hard, confusing, and a ton of work.
With plans to grow the team to more than 300 reps, the finance and sales ops team knew they needed a more scalable solution. As they were growing rapidly through acquisitions, it was becoming difficult to easily absorb the commission plans for these newly acquired entities. Finally, adding new product offerings also added complexity to their sales comp plans. They were long overdue for a new solution for managing sales commissions.
The Solution
After a BDR introduced Performio to the DemandScience commissions team, they evaluated the solution against other alternatives in the market. “Performio stood out to us because it had a powerful set of features that we could grow into,” said Eric Choronzy, SVP North America Sales, DemandScience. “The flexibility and logic to support our complex plan structures was exactly what we needed.”
“Performio’s ability to automate the bonus calculations and payouts was a critical feature,” said Choronzy. “Sales team turnover presents a big challenge when sales reps inherit accounts. Performio can pull the data over and link it directly to a new sales rep. I also love the dispute resolution feature and communication functionality Performio provides. Having everything easy to view, in one snapshot with tables for reference ensures I know the calculations are accurate. Now I am the checker vs. the doer.”
The Results
By adopting Performio, the DemandScience team can more easily work cross-functionally to manage their incentive compensation program. Their CRO is responsible for designing the compensation plans. Sales leadership and operations aids in the design, reporting and confirmation on AE and SDR performance, and reconciles everything in Performio. Finally, the Finance team manages the payments based on the data in Performio. What once required two dedicated finance people one full week each per month has now been reduced to one day per month.
“Our sales reps were very happy and excited when we rolled out Performio,” said Choronzy. “Before there was nowhere for them to go to view their plans and commissions. Today they can log in at their own leisure, spot anything that may not look accurate, and have more control.”