Could you do it?

Here’s the thing: If your complex compensation plan resides in a mountain of spreadsheets, volumes of Google Docs or a pile of Chick-fil-A napkins, I’m guessing the company’s revenue objectives and how they align with sales strategies are buried among them.

Manual commission planning in spreadsheets is actively eroding trust between RevOps and sales. Studies show that 44% of sales reps aren’t catching the motivation bug from their companies’ compensation plans, and 75% don’t feel they are paid fairly.

When compensation plans live in hidden tabs and break under the weight of last-minute changes, sales teams are left guessing. Guessing how they’re paid. Guessing what the revenue goals actually are. Guessing if leadership is playing fair. Even 90% of sales leaders can’t put total faith in their comp plan structures.

If your sales comp plan still lives in spreadsheets or takes a committee to interpret, you’re not alone. One source shows 60% of businesses still rely on spreadsheets to manage their commission strategies. Now, is it possible to scale with Excel spreadsheets? Sure. However, you are at a disadvantage. As your company grows, clunky, manual commission structures create more confusion than clarity. Are you routinely grappling with missed targets, frustrated reps and painfully slow reactions to market changes? That’s a sign of danger ahead.

This kind of opacity fuels frustration, not performance. It creates a culture of secrecy instead of strategy, and that’s a problem RevOps can’t afford to ignore.

The fix? The first step is to better align sales and commission strategies with business objectives. If you can’t find a clear revenue objective to partner with better commission planning, get one! Then, automate it for better visibility and management. Once you’ve recognized the power within this dynamic duo, it’s full throttle for business growth.

Here’s how.

Align

As the RevOps leader, you’re tasked with aligning revenue strategy across sales, marketing and customer success.

Start with crystal-clear business goals: revenue growth, market expansion and better customer retention.

“First, your design team (sales + finance + rev ops) must clearly understand the company’s goals. That means it could be revenue, or profits, or new logos, or market share/expansion,” wrote Erik Charles, GTM expert and RevOps advisor. “Then they need to avoid the trap of good intentions that often lead to bad results (such as paying for bringing a new client, which can lead to focusing on small prospects who are easier to close). Then, and only then, they can look at their automated Sales Performance Management platform to translate the sales goals into a motivating solution that everyone can enjoy. Remember — the SPM platform is a modeling tool, an execution tool and, finally, a communication tool.”

A powerful commission plan motivates reps and aligns your entire sales organization with your company’s big-picture goals. However, that only works if your plan is actually clear, adaptable and fast to deploy.

Think about it:

• Can your current commission plan pivot when your market shifts overnight?
• Does it reward the right behaviors, such as customer retention, team collaboration and high-margin deals?
• Do your reps trust it? Understand it? Or is everyone just praying the spreadsheet is right?

If your commission plans still live in spreadsheets or require heroic effort at quarter’s end, you’re flying blind when you should be steering the ship. Let automation do the heavy lifting.

Automate

If your goal is alignment between GTM teams and business objectives, spreadsheets can be more of a liability. Automation is the first step to breaking down silos, building transparency and driving commission plans that actually support revenue growth.

Early surveys show that high-performing sales teams use “nearly three times more sales technology” than teams that are falling behind in the sales race. In addition to streamlining manual tasks like data entry, which frees up sales reps to focus on selling, using a central platform that displays data-driven insight offers better visibility.

Why automation wins

Real-time dashboards mean no more late-night emails asking, “Did I hit quota?” Sales leaders and reps gain instant visibility into earnings, targets and performance, which builds trust and drives results. And because the platform syncs with today’s most popular CRM systems, every stakeholder operates from the same clean, accurate data.

Even better, automated tools let you adapt on the fly. Whether you’re adjusting accelerators mid-quarter or running A/B tests on new comp plans, automation makes iteration easy and risk-free. You eliminate shadow spreadsheets, prevent audit nightmares and give your RevOps team the time and clarity to focus on strategy, not scrambling to fix formula errors.

Accelerate

As a RevOps leader, your role extends beyond operations. Your focus rests primarily on managing optimization that drives strategy. That means building a commission framework that does more than pay reps. It needs to:

• Incentivize behaviors aligned with strategic growth initiatives.
• Enable real-time plan adjustments when territories shift or goals change.
• Eliminate payout confusion and disputes.
• Provide accurate forecasts and accruals that finance can trust.

Commission plans shouldn’t be a mystery

RevOps isn’t about plugging holes in manual processes. It’s about creating systems that scale, flex and fuel performance. When 75% of reps don’t feel fairly paid and 90% of sales leaders lack confidence in their own comp structures, the message is clear: the old way isn’t working. Consider this a turning point for your Go-to-Market strategies that provides you with the tools to align, automate and accelerate with confidence.

So here’s the real pop quiz: Are you ready to lead with clarity, or will you keep letting spreadsheets write your revenue strategies?

Have questions? Meet with Erik Charles at GTM Live on Aug. 28 for personal feedback on your compensation plan, RevOps strategy and more. See GTM LIVE event details at https://tinyurl.com/448kaat2.

J’Nel Wright is the content writer at Fullcast, a Silicon Slopes-based, end-to-end RevOps platform that allows companies to design, manage and track the performance of their revenue-generating teams.