Ask Victoria: Why Should You Design Your Compensation Plan Before You Get Software?

March 13, 2016 By admin Leave a Comment

You know you’ll need them both, but the order of acquisition matters.

If you contract for MLM software before your compensation plan has been designed, you may be diving into the water before you know what’s in the lake.

There may be unwelcome surprises waiting for you.

Over Budget

Most MLM software providers allocate a specific number of hours for the preparation of their design document, programming, testing, and QA.

If you can’t show them your compensation plan, you won’t know if your plan fits within their budgeted number of hours. If you provide the plan to them after you’re a client, be prepared to discover your plan doesn’t fit their budget. They can program it, but it may cost you more than they quoted you when you became a client.

How much more? You won’t know until you present your compensation plan to them.

More Than A Compensation Plan

You may think that the programming of your compensation plan is all you need, but very often that’s not the case.

You may need to keep track of dates when your representatives achieve specific milestones that matter to your compensation plan or other fields of data that your software provider doesn’t store at all.

You may need special reports or inquiry screens for these fields.

You may need interfaces to or from other systems to communicate data between them.

Until your compensation plan has been designed, you won’t know about these things to be able to communicate them to your software provider. The time required to support them won’t have been known before you became a client.

That means you’ll pay more. How much? You won’t know until you present your compensation plan to them.

Your Compensation Plan Isn’t Supported

It’s rare, but it’s possible your MLM software provider upon looking at your plan may tell you your plan isn’t supported. They may say…

“We don’t program daily plans”
“We don’t support multi-currency plans”
“We can’t program your plan because it doesn’t make sense.”

Conclusion

Have your compensation plan designed before you get your software.

For more information about MLM Software, go to MLM Software Advice.

Jay Leisner, the President of Sylvina Consulting, is a top compensation plan and direct selling expert, a trusted adviser to new and established network marketing and party plan companies. For more than 30 years, Jay has enjoyed assessing and improving network marketing, party plan and referral marketing companies across the globe.

Jay Leisner and Victoria Dohr authored the top-rated book for new and young network marketing, referral marketing, and party plan companies, "Start Here: The Guide to Building and Growing Your Direct Selling Company".

Available in English and Spanish. This startup guide contains 250 pages of wisdom that will guide you through the right steps to start and continue on your journey to build a successful direct selling company.

You will save thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of your time using the information you will read in our book.

In 1986, Jay began his career in direct selling by working for a major direct selling software provider. First as a software developer and later as a project leader and a business analyst, Jay worked closely with new and established network marketing and party direct selling companies to provide them with software solutions to meet their unique requirements.

Jay contributed in many ways to the success of large implementation projects for many companies. Jay also worked with dozens of smaller companies to assist each of them in various capacities to provide them with the systems they needed to help their businesses to grow faster.

Along the way while working with them, he learned the secrets of successful direct selling companies and the challenges faced by them. In true entrepreneurial spirit, Jay’s decision in 1999 to start Sylvina Consulting as a direct selling consulting company was driven by what he saw was a need for answers, advice, and solutions.

In 2004, 2006, 2009, 2014, and 2018, Jay gave presentations on compensation plans, recognition, and field leadership development at conferences held by the US Direct Selling Association.

He traveled to South Africa in 2015, 2016, and 2017 to conduct workshops on compensation plan design and recognition programs for member companies of the South African Direct Selling Association.

In 2017, Jay spoke at the Canadian Direct Sellers Association Meeting on the importance of recognition.

More than just a compensation plan expert, Jay is exceptionally skilled at advising new and established companies on business strategies. Before offering advice or solutions, he asks important questions to understand each client’s specific concerns and goals.

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