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Selling In a Low Demand Economy

The economy continues to struggle. As austerity takes center stage, consumers continue cutting back. Corporations are profitable after earlier belt tightening but remain cautious due to uncertainty. Bank lending is almost nonexistent. Unemployment remains high. The result is sluggish growth. Forecasts for the long awaited economic recovery are grim. It could take years.

The Importance of Strategically Designed Compensation Plans

Compensation plans have not always been considered a strategic business initiative.  However, with the effects they have on recruiting, retaining and motivating people as well as the implications for a company's bottom line, compensation design is a critical element to achieving success.  

Using Consistency and Flexibility to Localize Global Sales Compensation Plans

Conventional wisdom dictates that within the realm of compensation, one size cannot fit all. Add in the complexity of sales incentives and overlay a global perspective, and there is no way the centralized administration of a common design framework will work for multiple countries with divergent cultures and differing perspectives on pay and performance. Or so the theory goes.

What's Working for Sales Managers: Profitable Accounts

New system ensured salespeople focused on profitable accounts

While researching ways to boost closing rates, we realized a lot of our salespeople were spending time with high-maintenance prospects who weren’t generating a lot of business.

So we reworked our comp, segmenting buyers based on how lucrative their accounts were.

This way, salespeople would be rewarded based strictly on how much revenue they brought in, which we hoped would result in them spending more time with top-tier prospects.

Lessons From The Great Recession: Setting Quotas When The Economy Is Unpredictable and Turbulent

Although the National Bureau of Economic Research considers the recession over, many businesses are still feeling the impact of the downturn of the economy. Businesses and individuals continue to confront the debt hangover and deleverage while eagerly waiting for a definitive sign that the worst is behind us.

Executives are beginning to be more cautiously optimistic about the economy. Business prospects appear to be brightening but executives are still wary of taking any significant risk.

What's Working for Sales Managers: Revamped Comp

Revamped comp resulted in an 18% increase in revenue

Over the years, our company had transitioned from one that thrived on new business to one that was primarily made up of repeat buyers.

But our reps were still spending most of their time trying to close new business, rather than building strong relationships with the customers who brought in most of our revenue.

The reason: Our comp was set up in such a way that it paid high commissions for closing new business, but almost no commission for closing repeat business.

Five Reminders to Properly Calculate Your Compensation Cost of Sales

Compensation Cost of Sales (CCOS) is a simple concept. It indicates for every dollar in sales how much is spent/invested in sales compensation.

Total Cash Compensation ÷ Total Sales = CCOS
$150,000 ÷ $3,000,000 = 5%