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.

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.

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.

Looking Ahead: Should We Make a Change?

Sales Compensation Focus, July 2010 – The economy appears to have taken a positive turn and many companies are starting to think about growth: hiring more sales reps, launching a new product, or breaking into a new market segment. One of the first questions that is raised when a company returns to growth mode, especially if there has been significant retrenching, is, “What should we do with our sales compensation plans?”

Incentive Plans Must be Well-Documented to Prevent Costly Confusion

The Logistics Journal, March 2010 – The joke goes that the majority of incentive plans are drawn up by the company president and sales director hastily over cocktails and written on a napkin. While most incentive compensation plans have a bit more thought put into them than this…

Rewarding Behaviors vs. Rewarding Results — Results!

WorldatWork Sales Compensation Focus, March 2010 — “You get what you pay for.” If you pay for behaviors, you’re very likely to get them; if you pay for results, you will improve the chances of getting the needed results significantly.

Linking Performance Management and Incentive Pay

WorldatWork Sales Compensation Quarterly, Q2 2009 — Incentive Pay and performance management are often managed by different parts of an organization without much thought given to how performance management can work with incentives to increase sales force performance…

First Step of Sales Comp Planning: Define Roles

WorldatWork Sales Compensation Quarterly, Q3 2008 — “Why isn’t my incentive plan getting me the growth I need” is a common lament from the the VP of Sales to the President to the CEO. One of the main reasons may not have anything to do with your compensation plans, but may be more about the way your sales roles are defined…