We launched Compfluence in September, which is compensation management for dealers. More on what that actually means and “why” a little farther down the page.
One of the most enjoyable parts of this company is learning all the pay plan similarities and differences that we’ve seen across dealerships.
We’d love to keep learning from the DR community:
A few of our learnings so far:
At TradePending (our previous company), we built internal tools that let our sales team see their earnings, collections, and bonuses in real time.
Reps stopped questioning paychecks on pay day. They could teach themselves to see what was a good deal and what wasn’t by the deal recap, managers coached better because they could see what was happening, and leadership could see how the plan was actually shaping behavior.
That is not the norm for software companies nor dealerships! Every dealership we've spoken with keeps compensation in a spreadsheet that a few people can open. Reps often don't see their numbers until the month closes, finance re-keys data by hand and fixes errors after the fact, and it is hard to tell whether a plan is doing what it was designed to do.
Another way to frame this up: Marketing spend gets dashboards, attribution, and monthly vendor reviews. Compensation, the largest controllable expenses in the building (and usually 8-10x of marketing spend), gets a manually updated spreadsheet.
So…hook us up with your feedback!
One of the most enjoyable parts of this company is learning all the pay plan similarities and differences that we’ve seen across dealerships.
We’d love to keep learning from the DR community:
- Does your sales team get paid weekly, bi-weekly or monthly?
- What type of overall plan does the sales team have? Straight commission, commission + draw, flats, etc
- Is your plan the same across stores, or set by each GM or partner?
- How often do pay plans change?
- Which parts of the plan have you seen actually change rep behavior, and which didn’t work out?
- What kind of success have you had with bonuses and what were they?
A few of our learnings so far:
- Everyone says their pay plan is simple, but every plan we’ve reviewed generates 1-2 pages of questions because so much institutional knowledge is in people’s heads and not on paper.
- Reps often can't see where they stand to gain from the next tier or bonus until after the month closes.
- 99% of plans live in spreadsheets. Sometimes there are multiple sheets for commissions, bonuses, chargebacks, and month-end close often turns into a "washout day" that brings a mix of emotions.
- Plans vary by store, by role, and even by hire date within the same store
- Many bonuses are rubber-stamped because there’s no simple way to track them and provide evidence
- A commissions engine, integrated directly with your DMS, which means all manual entry of commissions data goes to zero so that month-end takes minutes, not days, and it’s a single source of truth for all pay plans.
- Visibility for employees where there was none before. Employees get daily texts showing their commissions earned from the day prior, with no app login needed, while they can still view their pay plans, total earnings, pay sheets, and pacing from one spot.
- Better decision making for the management team to know if they pay plans they’ve built are actually delivering the results and profitability they’re after
At TradePending (our previous company), we built internal tools that let our sales team see their earnings, collections, and bonuses in real time.
Reps stopped questioning paychecks on pay day. They could teach themselves to see what was a good deal and what wasn’t by the deal recap, managers coached better because they could see what was happening, and leadership could see how the plan was actually shaping behavior.
That is not the norm for software companies nor dealerships! Every dealership we've spoken with keeps compensation in a spreadsheet that a few people can open. Reps often don't see their numbers until the month closes, finance re-keys data by hand and fixes errors after the fact, and it is hard to tell whether a plan is doing what it was designed to do.
Another way to frame this up: Marketing spend gets dashboards, attribution, and monthly vendor reviews. Compensation, the largest controllable expenses in the building (and usually 8-10x of marketing spend), gets a manually updated spreadsheet.
So…hook us up with your feedback!
