FAQ

Sales Performance Management (SPM) is the practice of monitoring and guiding personnel to improve their ability to sell products or services. Sales Performance Management systems typically include the following four components:

1. Incentive Compensation Management – How do you inspire and motivate sales people and teams to perform? Financial compensation is an important factor and financial firms need to review and adjust their incentive compensation programs constantly to optimally drive advisor performance and profitable growth. However, the real opportunity is to hitch compensation and the rest of the incentive toolkit to the corporate strategy. Strong incentive compensation programs should drive the advisor’s activity and behavior in alignment with that strategy.
2. Performance Management – Performance management tools, actionable insights, performance benchmarking and analytics help individual advisors perform better by achieving more. Clearly defined KPIs and visibility into performance on a regular basis through detailed performance dashboards allows advisors and managers to effectively analyze performance data and quickly adjust strategy and to continuously improve sales performance.
3. Talent Management – Human talent, in the form of client-facing advisors and business managers, are the core of advice-based financial businesses. The goal with effective talent management is to allow individuals to interact, collaborate, and problem-solve, leveraging the skills and practice management support of the organization. SPM tools make it easier to manage your sales talent and create positive cultural norms, by celebrating top performers, identifying peer coaching opportunities, and cataloguing best practices for training and development. Such practices tend to have a multiplier effect on your incentive compensation programs.
4. Sales Enablement – Enabling your sales organization means extending the capabilities of each salesperson and/or team, by making sure they’re proactively equipped with the right materials for each sales situation. This may include CRM systems, call scripts and auto-dialling, templates for emails, letters, and forms, automated, rules-based, activities, and task management, including follow up reminders and productivity reporting. Software systems can enhance the sales performance management process by streamlining various activities in the corporate performance management process and encouraging behavior that drives sales and service performance.

Sales Performance is a measurement of sales results that is frequently used to then assist with the evaluation of an employee’s quality of work and help pinpoint their sales skills, development areas and helping companies improve their sales results.

When properly implemented, a Sales Performance Management program will have many organizational benefits:

1. SPM drives employee development and engagement. When managers rely mostly on annual performance reviews and informal feedback to discuss performance issues, everyone suffers. Sales Performance Management improves employee engagement through continuous, data-driven feedback and recognition.
2. SPM helps align strategic goals. When your sales team’s performance goals are aligned with your firm’s strategic objectives, the results are positive. SPM tools help firms incentivize the right behaviours and identify areas improvement.
3. SPM improves the bottom line. In addition to reducing costs, SPM gives you a more complete picture of your overall business performance. Detailed sales performance analysis encourages conversations, improving the financial performance of individual salespeople and the firm as a whole.

Incentive Compensation is a remuneration regime that is aligned with the achievement of specific results or outcomes. The program is designed to encourage (incent) defined actions or outcomes by the participants in a specific timeframe with the expectations that those actions or outcomes create business value. Many incentive compensation programs involve both a base (salary) and variable (incentive) component, but some are entirely variable. The incentive compensation typically consists of commissions, bonuses of various types and/or profit sharing elements. It is used as a motivational tool used to drive and support business performance.

Incentive compensation management is the process of overseeing the measurement, calculation and payment of variable pay, as well as making adjustments to the plan that are designed to improve sales and performance. Employees are provided with an incentive compensation plan (sometime called a pay grid) and typically supported with coaching, sales management and reporting support to their progress on their incentive compensation plan. The pay grid outlines the performance levels and associated compensation amounts that will be paid to employees when they achieve the specified targets.

Contemporary Incentive Compensation Management systems are software systems for managing and administering compensation plans, quotas, crediting and adjustments, and for processing payment transactions for direct and partnered sales organizations through the generation of transaction registers and commission statements. For sales management and finance departments, Incentive Compensation Management systems also provide extensive reporting and query capabilities, as well as hypothetical “what if” modeling to support financial analysis and strategic plan design. Incentive Compensation Management systems typically ingest back-office transactional data in order to calculate financial compensation to be paid out to employees according to pay cycles that range from bi-weekly to annually. These systems also typically integrate or interface with general ledger accounting management systems within an organization.

Talent management is an organization’s process of recruiting, developing, training, and retaining employees whose skills best align with the needs and objectives of the company. The goal of talent management is to hire the best employees the business can afford and to ensure the maximum return from their talent by creating an attractive organizational culture that encourages happiness and commitment. Increasingly, talent management incorporates behavioral frameworks, progression pathways and big data analytics tools and technology.

Business intelligence (BI) is a technology-driven process that includes the applications, infrastructure and tools, and best practices that enable access to and analysis of information and presenting actionable information to help executives, managers and other corporate end users make informed business decisions.

Sales enablement is the process of providing salespeople within your organization with the information, content, and tools that help them sell more effectively. The foundation of sales enablement is to provide salespeople with what they need to successfully engage the buyer throughout the buying process.

Wealth management is a financial advisory practice which commonly bring together the professional disciplines of financial planning, financial strategy, legacy/estate planning, tax planning, investment st management and risk management disciplines directly for the benefit of customers with material assets or cash flows (commonly called the affluent and high-net-worth customer segments). It can encompass all aspects of the client’s financial life.

A full-service brokerage is a licensed investments broker-dealer firm that executes trades for clients, but may also provide some mixture of research, advice, financial planning, retirement planning and tax assistance.

A registered investment advisor is an individual or firm that provides investment advice or analysis by making direct or indirect recommendations regarding securities or securities markets and manages the investments of the indivudual investors. RIAs have a fiduciary duty to their clients, obligating them to act in their clients’ best interest. RIAs are registered with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) (and sometimes individual State authorities) and must comply with SEC regulations.

Private banking refers to special banking product and services offered to high-net-worth Individuals or individuals with significant cash flows. Typically a dedicated Private Banker or Relationship Manager work with the customer and coordinates much of their banking and cash management. This may include securing and using loan facilities. Typically the products used are more sophisticated and have special pricing arrangements. At some institutions, private banking is delivered as part of a wholistic wealth management service.

The terms Asset Management and Investment Management have evolved to be commonly referred to as the same service. Historically, there as some notion that Asset Management services might include less investing focuses activities such as custodial and trust services. While this is true, it is fairly common for Asset Management and Investment Management to be used interchangedly.

Investment management is the activity of a financial advisor or financial services company that oversees and makes decisions regarding the investments of an individual, company, or other institution’s financial portfolio. The activities undertaken including the selection, purchase and sale of securities in a portfolio. In general, a portfolio is managed against an specific set of targets and objectives, including geographich focus, industry sectors, types of securities held and risk profile.

A financial advisor provides financial advice or guidance to customers for compensation. Financial advisors (or advisers) can provide many different services, such as investment management, income tax preparation and estate planning. A wide variety of licenses are available for the services provided by a financial advisor. ‘Financial advisor’ is a generic term and many different types of financial professionals use this title, such as stockbrokers, insurance agents, tax preparers, estate planners, investment managers and financial planners. A true financial advisor should be a well-educated, credentialed, experienced, financial professional who works in the best interests of his clients as opposed to serving the interests of a financial institution. However, non-fiduciary financial advisors are under no legal obligation to act in their client’s best interest.

A broker is a person or a company that acts as an intermediary, facilitating transactions between buyers and sellers. A fee or commission is charged once the deal has been executed.

A financial planner is an accredited professional who sets up and helps monitor, financial management strategies for individuals and organizations that include cash flow, borrowing, investments, tax planning, asset allocation, risk management, retirement planning, and estate planning with a goal of meeting their financial objectives and maximizing their client’s worth.

In many jurisdications the term Investment Advisor is defined in the regulatory regime for the securities industry. Individuals who use the title are required to maintain an registration with the regulaotry or a self-regulatory body and typically are required to met initial an ongoing qualifcation standards. An investment advisor provides advice to customers on investment portfolios including the selection of particular investment instruments. They typically help buy and sell the investment instruments as required to execute the portfolio strategy. Many investment advisors also offer financial planning and other financial advice services.

A Wealth Planner is a term used by some financial advisors. Generally Wealth Planners focus on a higher net worth segment of the market – high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) – and delivery or provide access to a wide range of expertise such as tax planning, wealth protection, estate planning, business succession planning, capital gains planning and risk management.

See Wealth Planner

A fiduciary is a person who holds a legal or ethical relationship of trust with a person or group of persons. Typically, in financial services, a fiduciary refers to a financial advisor who prudently takes care of money or other financial assets for their clients and is legally bound to act in their client’s best interest. In a financial fiduciary relationship, one person justifiably places confidence, good faith, reliance, and trust in another whose aid or advice is sought with respect to their investments. Asset managers, including managers of pension plans, endowments, and other tax-exempt assets, are considered fiduciaries under applicable statutes and laws. Among the broadly used term “financial advisors” only Registered Investment Advisors (RIA), who are governed by the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, are held to a true fiduciary standard.

Software as a service (SaaS) is a software distribution model, provided on a subscripton basis, where customers access software over the Internet. SaaS is used in a number of common business areas, including customer relationship management (CRM), document management, accounting, human resource (HR) management, service desk management, content management and collaboration.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a type of cloud computing service that a suite of platform services in a cloud infrastructure that enables developers to build applications and services into or on that platform with greater speed and scability over the internet. A Platform as a Service would typically include an Operating System (OS), scalable storage, scalable server capacity, virtualization and the runtime environment. The developer only need worry about building their applications and deploying their data.

API stands for Application Programming Interface. An API is means of productizing a set of routines, protocols, and tools to empower end-users (developers) to easily access specific value in a system.

Graph analytics leverages graph data structures to recognize, codify and understand the links (edges) that exist between objects in a database. The objects can represent people, objects, information, nodes or devices. It is based on graph theory mathematics. It is popular because it can provide insights in the stregth (magnitude) and directionality of the relationship between the objects. It has become a popular foundation for social networks.

A Financial Service organization that holds in custody and safekeeping a customer’s assets and securities with the intention of minimizing the risk of theft and loss, and makes the assets and securities available to the customer or their agents for the purpose of selling the assets or using the assets for collateral. The custodian typically handles a wide variety of administrative activities, including account administration, transaction settlements, collection of dividends and interest payments, tax reporting, and foreign exchange. The custodian’s customer may be another financial institution, such as a mutual fund or investment dealers, or may be a corporation, partnership or an individual.

Financial planning, typically set out by an accredited Financial Planner, but also self directed with a variety of digital tools, is the process of developing and implementing an action plan to achieve the customer’s short and long term financial goals and objectives. Components of a financial plan may include cash flow planning and management, income tax strategies, retirement planning and savings, investments, education and estate planning. Some planners actively implement the plan with the customer and others remain at arms length, serving only to develop the plan and allow other professionals or the customer to execute it.

A customer relationship management (CRM) tool or system is designed to aggregate disperate information about customers and prospects. CRM systems facilitate the organization and presentation of this information to aid in delivery of support and the advancement of customers and prospects through sales and service models. In a technical sense they are data management systems used to organize, automate, and track business processes like sales, lead generation, marketing, forecasting, customer service and ROI measurement.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are business metrics used to track how well a customer, project, employee, team, business unit or overall organization is performing. They are typically related to strategic goals, objectives and execution tactics. Commonly a comparative benchmark is used as a basis of understanding relative performance. Effective KPIs help evaluate the success of a particular activity in which the measured entity is engaged.

KPIs deliver insight into how the Advisor’s practice is performing and can be used to pinpoint further areas for success. An advisor can leverage KPIs to help them measure and monitor the practice on multiple levels – strategic, operational and customer engagement – helping the Advisor make improved business decisions around strategic hires, raising fees, and changes to the service delivery to segments and individual customers. Understanding basic KPIs like profit per client, time spent serving clients, revenue per hour of client service, and cost of client acquisition helps the advisor focus on which actions to take to run a profitable business, achieve the level of success they want, and positively impact your clients’ lives.

Practice management is the ongoing process of evaluating a professional practice – typically financial advisory practices – leveraging data and tools to ensure the business performance of the practice remains successful. A professional advisor uses practice management tools to help identify areas of opportunity, defining, articulating and quantifying their value, to build a thriving practice and establish enduring client relationships.

An office of Supervisory Jurisdiction (OSJ) is a business structure used by some broker-dealer firms to disseminate control and supervision responsibilities to specific offices. An OSJ is responsible for ensuring that all advisors and administrative staff under its supervision are in compliance with all federal, state, and FINRA rules and regulations, as well as the firm’s policies and procedures. The OSJ approves accounts and communication and may have some distinct product and service offerings.

Ensemble teaming is a resource model used in financial services to energize advisors, retain customers, and enable streamlined onboarding of wealth management resources. By pairing a balance of skills, expertise, and customer relationships with appropriate tools and incentives, an organization improves customer experience, motivates customers to continue doing business as things change, and establishes immediate connections with advisors.