Where, oh, where would your Hunters be if it weren’t for Prospectors?

Part of the reason why you need a whole team of them is that it simply isn’t sustainable for one sales rep to find leads, generate pipeline, and close deals.

Prospectors allow closers to focus on their strengths while keeping the pipeline full. You want to be able to build an incentive plan that keeps them happy and prospecting away.

However, there are 2 common issues when it comes to paying a Prospector:

1. A full pipeline doesn’t necessarily mean it’s full of qualified leads
2. Incenting gets tricky because they don’t close deals themselves

Think about your objectives and how you can align them with a Prospector’s. You want to grow your company through sales, while a Prospector’s job is to bring in leads.

Since they have little control over whether that lead becomes a closed deal or not, it’s not fair to reward them based on the results.

And yet: If your Prospector is only focused on bringing in as many leads as possible–no matter how poor quality they may be–that’s a waste of time and money. So you can’t reward them simply for the volume of leads they bring in.

Instead:

• Decide how to split the variable and base portion of the pay judging by brand awareness and other issues
• Set sales goals based on forecasted potential of territories of account execs
• Provide extra rewards and bonuses for success over quota
• Split the variable between your goal, sales, and the job’s goal, leads

When you set up your CRM to handle passing leads to reps and track what happens, you can sit back, relax, and watch a successful flow from Prospect to Close. And that’s always a good feeling.

—Erik Charles is Xactly’s Principal Incentives Strategist