Top Compensation Mistakes – Part 1 of 3

by Beth Carroll, Managing Principal, Cygnal TLC We are often asked “what is ‘the right way’ to pay?” but there is no easy answer to this question. The “right way” depends on a variety of factors particular to each company. There are some definite wrong ways to pay, and this three-part article will outline the …

Why 100% Variable Pay Often Produces Undesirable Results

Many sales leaders and CFOs believe paying company sales representatives as if they were agents (100 percent variable pay) strengthens alignment between a company’s objectives and sales representatives’ focus and results; however, the absence of a base salary often has an adverse effect with significant unintended consequences: Lack of Control, Complacency, and Limited Flexibility.

Are you overpaying your sales staff?

DESIGNING EFFECTIVE SALES COMPENSATION IS AN ART. When done well, it enables companies to develop the right mix of individual motivation and teamwork while balancing the needs for both short-term financial gain and long-term strategic positioning.

Top 3 Compensation “Menu Choices” for Transportation Brokers

Developing compensation plans for an organization is a bit like cooking up a gourmet meal for a group of people with very particular tastes.

Selling Your Sales Compensation Plan to Management

WorkSpan Magazine, February, 2011 – Selling Your Sales Compensation Plan to Management Learn how to prevent last-minute derailment of your sales compensation design effort, and make sure your plan designs reflect the top priorities of your most influential stakeholders.

Beyond Cash Compensation – Motivation and Morale on a Tight Budget

Beth Carroll, Logistics Journal, November 2010 – One approach some Transportation & Logistics companies took for dealing with the recession was to eliminate incentive compensation and revert to a 100% salary approach, which gave them the ability to manage to a fixed cost of compensation and deal with productivity and staffing from a purely 1:1 perspective (if the person wasn’t generating enough to justify their salary, they didn’t tend to stay around very long).

The Best Way to Pay Your Sales Staff Now

AMEX Inside Edge, October 19, 2010 The sales staff at DealerTrack wasn’t sold on how they were being paid.

The Lake Success, New York, maker of software for auto dealers had done several acquisitions. Now management wanted the combined sales force to push a new product, an all-in-one management program that could replace stand-alone applications for inventory management, leasing and the like, to the company’s 17,000 auto-dealer customers.

Communicating to Sales Professionals

Sales Compensation Quarterly, November 8, 2009 – Communicating changing sales compensation plans is never easy. The salesforce will always start with the assumption that the new plan is going to take something away from them, and will be skeptical of anything the company tries to push as a “positive change.”

Keys to Success: Six Areas to Address in Your Next Sales Compensation Plan

Workspan, August 27, 2010 — It’s fall again, the economy appears to have shifted toward the positive in many sectors, and companies are thinking about redesigning their sales compensation plans for 2011. In order to ensure the redesign process and resulting plans will provide a good return, businesses should address six key areas.

Sales Compensation 101 for the Logistics Industry

Logistics Journal, April and May 2010 – Good news and bad news: incentive plans work! So how do you design your incentive plan so you don’t end up with some unexpected consequences?