Some organizations end up promoting their best sales reps into managerial roles. Have you fallen into this trap and whisked your best rep out of the field, or have you truly found a sales leader?

If you’re nodding towards the latter, then you’ll do everything you can to keep the captain of your ship happy.

You can start by rewarding your sales managers with team-based incentive plans. Plans that reflect:

• Variables a manager’s staff is judged on
• Attainment of financial goals
• Metrics that focus on managing activities

If a manager owns the tools for increased visibility, they’re more likely to be on the margin. And a manager on the margin has an average rep turnover of only 5.6%—as opposed to the 22.2% of the manager hitting quota or 18.6% of the one missing quota.

When you incentivize plan building, you remove the room for error. Less errors + more productive reps = improved staff retention + better numbers. Which means you get to reward more of your sales managers.

It also means you’re making it that much easier for your Captain to steer the ship.

—Erik Charles is Xactly’s Principal Incentives Strategist.