Discover the secret to create a compelling vision of your team's future?

When I first got into leadership it was because I started to enjoy seeing other sales professionals improve and accomplish goals beyond their expectations more than me accomplishing my goals. For me, it happened when my Sales Manager, Gloria Devereux assigned me to help onboarding new team members, and I discovered I really enjoyed seeing other achieve. It was further cultivated when I was selected to be a part of the Leadership Development Program at Sprint, designed to help high potential managers grow in their leadership development skills to become the next generation of Executives. I wasn’t a manager, yet I still was selected to participate. I really enjoyed being a part of that program.

One simple learning from the program, yet extremely powerful, was a leader must create a “compelling vision of the future” for their teams. This is where each person knows where the company is going and how this direction aligns with their personal goals. Individuals self-defined their goals and their vision of their personal future and you as the leader help shape those goals to align with Company’s objectives and thereby support your team’s goals. Some many great leadership experiences and key learnings happen in this process. Too many to mention in one blog yet wanted to focus on one tool that I customized for my teams was called an ‘Income Planner’.

Income Planner was designed to help individuals in variable compensation (commissioned or bonused based jobs) to plan their year-end desired income (before deductions). The process is straight forward as an individual would define the target income then work backwards and define the amount of their variable compensation they needed in order to achieve their define income. Simple right, yet how do you get there? The journey to help each individual create their personalized plan requires knowing one’s skills, areas of growth and overall knowledge of their business acumen. In a previous blog post “5 Critical Elements for Better Year-end Sales Territory Reviews,” we touched on the Income Planner. Here is an overview to get started:

Income Goal:

Desired Income = Base salary + variable comp (IE. $140k= $84k base + $56k variable)

Monthly Goal:

Variable Comp target = Annual divided by payment period (I.E.: $56k / 12 months = $4.67k)

Monthly Goal Achievement

Variable Comp plan = (Payment achievement / payment period goals/quota) x Variable Comp amount (I.E.: 116% x $4k = ~$4.64k)

Requirements:

Monthly Goals: Actual Achievement Required / quota or target goals - company defined (I.E.: ~$464k /$400k quota = ~1.16% of monthly target)

It is in the development of the Income Planner where the team member growth happens. There are several more steps beyond what is above to define the core elements necessary to define their business and gain a deeper understanding of their future tied to their performance. The process is designed to have each person learn and know their business intimately. To understand and document what they required of themselves on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to achieve their goals. Every person is unique, different and will have a unique planner.

My experience over 15+ years of leading teams is to have each variable comp team member create an income planner to define their goals. Your job, as the leader, is to help them achieve their self-defined income goals. The value is you have helped a person create a pathway for their future and to help them experience your commitment to helping them achieve, while giving them the ability to see their desired future working with you.

If you want all the steps and/or specific examples, please reach out to set up a free time to review.