By QUINTIN L. GUNN, Sr.

Should Your Business or Medical Practice be Salary Only or Salary With Commission?

Here are some of the facts about Customer Sales Managers and Patient Care Coordinators:

• 70% of CSMs receive a commission as part of their pay structure, with 62% of CSM or PCC's making at least 15% TO 20% of their salary from commission. 

• Only 35% of businesses want to incorporate more commission into their compensation package due to concerns about losing experienced staff to their competition …

• It's sad to say less than 51% of CSM or PCC's actually have a sales background which can have an enormous impact on revenues and the attitude toward sales requirements in their role as profit centers to the business or practice.

• What can we infer from these statistics?

• For most businesses that employ CSM or PCC's who have a sales background, these understand that commission forms a major part of their monthly income and salary  

• Only one-quarter of CSM or PCC's however, want a commission requirement as part of their compensation plan. In fact, some fee for service businesses saw over 50% of those surveyed desired to move to customer service jobs instead of sales jobs. Why, because they didn't have to be accountable for outcomes. They just preferred the plug and play, go along to get along option.
• If you are experiencing a revenue downturn, bad employee attitudes and low sales from your team. Is it possible that you have a low-risk, high reward operation when it comes to the staffs performance?

• Has your CSM or PCC team become more like customer service rather than the sales team they need to be?
• Do they understand that if they hit their targets they get rewarded and the business or practice stays profitable?

• Recognize that your staff is not the enemy. But you the owner just might be the enemy, for not setting proper expectations and performance requirements as well as not sharing your concerns about company profits with the team.

• If your finding that your PCC sales numbers are not where they need to be for the position they are in, it might be time to start evaluating motivation, impact and results that a high base salary is creating. It is very likely causing a problem with individual performance and making your sales staff complacent. You might be surprised to find that a significant number within the PPC group may be de-motivated by heavy salary and low incentives. How do you develop a strong team if there are no expectations for performance?

Ask yourself: If I made the CSM or PCC staff salary tied MORE to sales/commission for weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly goals, could I expect to see improved profits? (The answer is very likely, and the CSM or PCC would likely pay more attention to their individual performance and its impact on the practice. In other words, they would have more skin in the game for the business or practice)

• Monthly goals need to be set based on the number of leads given and handled by each CSM or PCC. How many consults have they scheduled, and from that number, how many closed sales occurred from their consults given?

• Here are a few factors to consider when setting goals for your team: Experience, What department, and Which products or services by dollar averages they would need to sell to reach their individual goals weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly. If these are not considered it could lead to high turn over and a wave of key employees leaving.

• Ask yourself: Is my team giving me their best performance relative to their salary and company benefits? Are you generating enough quality leads from the internet? How involved is your practice with social media? Does Your Staff know what to say when following up on social media leads? It’s only by asking these difficult questions that you might begin to understand how the personality of your team is affecting your bottom line and business or practice profitability.

• As more and more competition occurs for paying consumers and patients. You will need both a strong marketing and a strong sales team to compete! Gone are the days you could just see a business grow through just word of mouth. The internet and social media have changed all of that for everyone. Without a strong goal-oriented team the revenue growth engine will stall or decline. 

• Once you decide to go this route, MAKE IT FUN! Have an in-office contest that allows the staff to win services, treatments, trips, and other tax-deductible prizes along with a nice commission or incentive program that will drive improved performance and more sales. The better they perform the better the reward!

• But, what if you discover the personality within your sales team gravitates more toward customer service and top-heavy salary mindset. In this case, you might need to make some changes or reassign the roles of the team. 

• Sales is about relationship building and customer development! Shouldn't your compensation plan include sales commission based on performance rather than just a flat salary? Profits will never grow if the team you have does not sell and cross-sell while building the customer relationship for the company. Plus social media leads require more contact and follow up!

• Each PCC and Provider is a Profit Center and is responsible for specific income goals and requirements. If they are not meeting those basic goals, could it be that the nice base salary without any real requirement to perform is weakening their effort and resolve? In that case, you might want to think about reducing salaries and increasing commissions based on performance. Some will decide to leave, while others will factor, company benefits, work atmosphere, and the increased income generated by reaching their individual goals are more than enough of a reason to stay.

• By moving in this direction with your practice, at the very least you will find out who your real winners and go-getters are versus the slackers who have a go along, to get along mentality. 

• Don't you hold your vendors to a standard of performance or quality, so why not hold your sales staff to the same requirement. Our practice assessments consistently indicate that businesses who have a 70/30 salary to commission arrangement see increased profits, plus better work attitudes and better overall financial health for the entire practice. When was the last time you had a real practice or business assessment?   

• Lastly, when you focus on the right things in your practice, you can expect a happy team, happy customers, and more profitability which leads to your overall happiness and less stress about meeting financial goals and objectives!

• Our advice to you business owners and doctor practices. Become more of a student of your practice than just a business owner!

Quintin L. Gunn Sr., is Chief Strategic Officer for Social Media Solutions for Doctors

 Visit www.SocialMediaSolutionsforDoctors.com   or email socialmedia4doctors@gmail.com