If you’re considering employing a salesperson for your IT business, you might wonder how their salary should relate to your IT sales strategies. It is vital for your business that the salesperson’s salary/incentive ratio is right. Otherwise, you'll end up using the wrong sales tactics with your prospects. IT sales salaries seriously affect the behaviors of your sales force.
Suppose you will provide consulting services where you ultimately become a virtual CIO for companies you service. In that case, you’ll need to balance the compensation mix for your new salesperson carefully.
Base Salary vs. Commission with IT Sales Salaries
For instance, you might think you're better off employing someone with a low base salary but high incentives to attain short-term sales goals. In practice, this attracts an aggressive salesperson who thinks you want them to obtain sales by whatever means possible.
Finding the Right Balance for Long-Term Goals
This isn’t the type of sales mentality you need for your business. Therefore, that type of salesperson will likely do more harm than good to your business.
You want a salesperson who is experienced both in sales and technology, plus has the skills to help you grow your business and develop your customer base. This means paying a good base salary for that person to feel that this is their role. You’ll want their base salary to make up around 60% of the total package that you’re offering.
A good incentive level with IT sales salaries is generally somewhere between 20%-40%. I would set it right in the middle of that range so that enough of the money is “at risk,” depending on targets being met. This will motivate your new hire to do a good job but is a high enough level of remuneration to make that person feel comfortable that you have confidence in their being able to do the job and achieve their reward.
Do you find balancing the compensation mix tricky when trying to determine IT sales salaries? Share your experiences with us in the Comments section.
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