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Start with conversion between stages and time in stage, taken from the customer relationship system rather than from a manager's view. Most Australian mid-market sales teams have enough history for this even where nobody has run the numbers. The pattern is usually a single stage where deals stall, and a second where they are marked as progressed without any buyer action.

Then check how stages are defined. A stage that means the seller sent a proposal is a seller activity. A stage that means the buyer nominated a decision date and named who signs is buyer evidence. Forecasts built on the first kind are why sales leaders stop trusting the system.

Only then change anything, and change one thing. Redesigning the stages, the compensation and the territories in the same quarter makes it impossible to say which move worked, and it maximises disruption in the one function where disruption shows up in revenue within weeks.

The Fair Work Act requires an employer to pay amounts payable to an employee for the performance of work in full, in money, and at least monthly, by cash, cheque or similar order, electronic transfer, or a method authorised by a modern award or enterprise agreement. Where an award or agreement specifies a method, that method must be used.

The Act's note to that section states that the amounts covered include incentive-based payments and bonuses, loadings, monetary allowances, overtime or penalty rates and leave payments, if they become payable during the relevant period. So a commission that has become payable is wages, not a gift.

Pay slips must be given within one working day of paying an amount for the performance of work, and must include the information prescribed by regulations. Where commission forms part of pay, the pay slip has to show it properly. business.gov.au notes you may be fined for not providing a pay slip on time or not including the right information.

The usual failure is paying for the wrong event. A plan paying on signed contract with no clawback rewards deals that churn in three months. A plan paying on collected cash makes sellers chase invoices instead of selling. Pick the event you can live with and make the clawback or hold-back explicit in the plan document rather than in a manager's discretion.

The second failure is complexity. A plan with five components, two gates and a discretionary modifier cannot be modelled by the person it is meant to motivate. If a seller cannot calculate their own commission on a whiteboard, the plan is not an incentive.

The third is silence about the transition. Changing a plan partway through a cycle, for deals already in flight, is where disputes start. Set out what happens to in-flight deals in writing before the change takes effect.

A sales consultant changes the system: stages, qualification, territories, compensation and reporting. A sales trainer changes the people, through coaching and skills work. Training a team to run a broken process faster does not help, so the sequence usually matters: fix the process, then train to it.

An outsourced sales or lead generation provider does the selling. That is a different commercial arrangement with different risks, including who owns the customer relationship, what happens to the pipeline if you end the contract, and whether the callers are following the telemarketing and commercial electronic message rules administered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

For a business with a handful of sellers, a short consulting engagement followed by internal coaching is usually better value than a long retained arrangement, because the system changes once and the coaching is continuous.