Resources

This research gathers feedback from current clients of incentive compensation management (ICM) systems and sales performance management (SPM) systems. The survey identifies key issues related to these solutions’ offerings, capabilities, and effectiveness, based on feedback from practitioner users of these systems. We’ve made this research “evergreen,” and expect to issue...Read more

When management assigns salespeople to specific opportunities, accounts, segments, or geographies, they make resource allocation decisions that influence overall sales organization capacity, workload, and productivity. Over time, many small decisions can have outsized impacts. That's why the most effective sales organizations regularly review these resource allocation decisions to ensure they...Read more

Recent Sales Management Association research shows many firms with sales performance management (SPM) platforms derive value only from a portion of their SPM application's overall capabilities. These often underutilized capabilities extend SPM's business impact beyond the core function of administering incentive compensation programs. For many firms, these underutilized SPM functions...Read more

Most sales leaders consider coaching salespeople important however, few organizations do it consistently. But Why? Too often, sales forces haven't committed to elevating coaching as a management priority. The sales organizations most successful in creating a coaching culture within their companies often have more effective coaching. This is because they...Read more

COVID-19 forced an abrupt shift to virtual selling. As the pandemic recedes (however unevenly), management might look forward to putting aside many virtual tools. But this would be a mistake for most organizations. In fact, it’s much more likely that virtual communication will become a permanent capability for the sales...Read more

Business leaders rely on sales forecasting to gauge organizational health and to guide strategy. But most sales organizations find forecasting extremely challenging, and as a result struggle with forecasts that are rarely accurate. This skews resource investments in hiring and budgeting and prevents management from anticipating important demand trends. In...Read more

According to Zip Recruiter, there are over 700,000 open sales positions in the US, and nearly half of salespeople surveyed expect to be looking for a new job in the next 18 months.  However, the cost of a bad sales hire is 2-3x annual salary and rising steadily. Never before...Read more

With the “Great Resignation” in full swing, many organizations fear their best salespeople might soon leave for another opportunity. For those that do leave, compensation may factor heavily in their decision - but not necessarily because they believe they're earning too little. Experience shows that salesperson satisfaction with pay involves...Read more