Sales Compensation in 2017: Are You Being Paid Fairly?

Ever wondered if the grass is greener in another cubicle? It’s natural to want to know if you’re being paid fairly as a sales professional. After all, sales is all about closing deals and making money. The XANT Labs latest research, “State of Sales 2017,” shows what the average account executive is paid and how sales compensation is structured in over 1,000 companies.

Sales Compensation: Base Income versus Variable Income

Companies need to pay market value for the people if they are to attract and retain top talent. The average base salary for an inside sales account executive in the US is $42,833, with an average on-target-earnings (OTE) of $96,299, shows the State of Sales study.

In the United States, OTE tends to be higher ($111,170) than in Europe ($98,058).

The mix between base and variable was a 47/53 split with 47 for the base and 533 for the variable.

Account executives’ targets are very high – and not all sales reps manage to achieve them every time. The average sales rep has a quota of $793,566.

Only 60.09 percent of reps achieve this number every year, shows the study.

What Sales Executives Do With Their Time

As far as sales activities, sales reps are now sending more emails than they are placing phone calls. We’ve showed before that sales representatives prefer email as a first method of outreach – and that doesn’t necessarily mean they get the best outcomes.

Account executives send an average of 34.5 emails per day–more than any other activity. Phone calls were second on the list with 30.3. After all activities, the typical account executive has 11.9 meaningful conversations a day.

About 1 in 20 conversations (4.8%) converts into meaningful sales opportunities. The average rep creates 17.2 opportunities per month and is closing 12.8 deals per quarter for a market average close rate of 24.8%.

Download the State of Sales Report

The State of Sales report studied 1,151 companies to find what they do to win sales and close more deals. In addition, the study examined the sales market in which these companies operate and completed a benchmarking exercise.

Download the “State of Sales 2017” report to see how you compare:

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