CEO Announces Performance-Based Rebrand

Dec 30, 2021

Outfield…, a performance-based CRM? Like the rest of our audience, you may be wondering what that means or even why the switch.

Well, the change-up is a direct result of an honest conversation we had with ourselves around the current state of the CRM space. The market is missing an important attribute. Vendor accountability.

We created this “performance based” category in an effort to be true partners with our customers. That means everything from our business model to operations and even our pricing is revamped to reflect that passion. Imagine a playing field where our customer’s goals become our goals, we both get rewarded.

Since our existence, we have always been forward-thinking and set our eyes on solving new problems. Over the course of our journey, we’ve identified two challenges within the broader CRM space.

Low CRM Adoption
Adoption is arguably the most significant challenge companies are facing. In fact, according to the Miller Heiman Group, 43% of CRM customers use fewer than half of their CRM features. This essentially means a company could be spending a million dollars a year and lose over 500k in value. And from our experience, adoption issues are driven by three leading causes 1) lack of motivation from sales reps 2) lack of training 3) poorly designed user interfaces. We’ve focused our attention on solving for each of these items. After all, what good is a CRM if no one uses it?

Vendor Misalignment
The second major problem is that CRM companies are detached from the outcome of their customer’s goals. The customer eventually feels like they missed the mark because achieving their goals was the main reason they became customers of the CRM. This misalignment in objectives between both parties leaves CRM companies indifferent towards the outcomes of their customers. Meanwhile, the CRM partner still gets paid regardless of whether their customers are successful.

So what if we can change this?

In 2019, we launched LeaguePlay™, an extension that leverages behavioral psychology to drive results. We created a reputation-based platform allowing sales reps to receive credit that will motivate them to use their CRM comprehensively as opposed to not knowing their CRM goals. We not only changed how sales reps viewed our CRM, but also how managers connected with it.

Over the last two years, we gathered our CRM usage data impacted by game mechanics. After interviewing 100 sales managers, we uncovered that 90% of sales managers found that introducing game mechanics to their sales strategy positively impacted sales numbers, revenue, and employee morale.

Check out the rest of the data in our whitepaper.

All this data helped us conclude that this is the best approach to solving the adoption problem, but that didn’t solve the misalignment.

What if your CRM company partnered you with a performance specialist who aligned your company’s sales goals with your team’s CRM usage and was rewarded for not only improving your team’s CRM usage but also for improving your company’s sales goals?

As salespeople, we are wired to think about our comp plans in terms of base salaries combined with variable pay. And that variable pay is based solely on that our ability to drive results.

So it’s not a stretch to think that CRM vendors should be compensated in a similar fashion. CRM companies profess all day about how they’ll help you increase sales…well prove it!

We can’t expect to help you if adoption is low, and that’s precisely where you begin if you want to make a true impact. Next is to truly understand client goals, agree on KPIs, and once we achieve those goals, we share in the success.

Here’s how it will work

We will continue to offer the traditional pricing plans where you simply pay for license access. We acknowledge some people are comfortable with this.

Example: Traditional Pricing Plan

10 person team x $69.99 x 12 months = $8398.80

However, in the spirit of establishing a win/win relationship and proving our value, we will also offer an alternative pricing plan. One that we believe is much better and that’s the performance-based plan. Suppose the customer opts for the performance-based plan. In that case, the expectation is that licensed access is discounted from standard pricing and combined with variable incentives based on our performance relative to the set goals. The customer will pay out the variable incentives quarterly over the course of the contract. Based on performance, the variable pay would range between $0 - $45 per head.

Example: Base Compensation

10 person team x $50 x 12 months = $6000.

Variable:

If we reached 100% of our goals, the variable compensation would look like this:

10 person team x 45 x 12 = $5400.

Therefore total amount the customer would pay over the course of the year would be:

$6000 + $5400 = $11,400

So in comparing the two plans, the traditional model could result in a lower cost to the customer in the end. However, it is less goal oriented and less proactive. The alternative pricing model could result in a higher cost to the customer, but only under the condition that their goals were achieved.

Ultimately, it’s left up to the customer which option they’re most comfortable with. Our guess is that most CRM customers would have a heightened appreciation for a vendor that had a stake in their success.

What’s next?

Our rebrand was a journey that we were destined to find to embrace our identity and how we saw our ability to generate value in the CRM space. Now, it feels like we have hit a home run. As the performance-based CRM company, Outfield is becoming the leading CRM adoption expert through leveraging game theory and behavioral psychology to drive performance and user adoption.

We are committed to this rebrand and have a lot of changes to come. I am excited to share this news with you all and look forward to your feedback. After all, we wouldn’t have seen the clear need for this change without hearing from you.

Reimagine CRM usage with Outfield

We believe in what we are doing and invite you to join us on our journey. If you are curious or want to know how to get started, you should sign up for our early backers’ program. Subscribers will be the first to know when we launch our crowdfunding campaign.