Resources

Recent SMA research shows that among all sales planning activities, management considers most important to the sales organization’s success the planning it does related to incentive compensation and salesperson quotas. Yet only four in ten firms consider their sales compensation and quota related planning efforts effective. In this study, we...Read more

The Sales Management Association’s sales compensation resources include our library of pay plan templates, viewable here .  Each plan is presented in a downloadable spreadsheet template, which members can use to adapt a selected pay plan design to a sales position’s specific pay and performance requirements. We recently added multiple new...Read more

The first in a three part series on sales resource utilization. Sales forces are continually pressured to improve productivity. As a result, many leaders' first response is to focus on improving salesperson effectiveness. But many overlook the significant productivity gains that come from improving efficiency, including those from improving resource...Read more

Motivating a sales team is challenging in the best of times. During the last three years, however, leaders have had to do so even as they navigated global calamity and workforce changes. Sales reps have been on a similar odyssey, striving to hit goals while grappling with new priorities and...Read more

Our benchmarking survey of 205 firms* shows that coaching is considered sales management's single most impactful activity. Yet more than three-fourths (76%) of firms say they provide too little salesperson coaching, and less than half (46%) are effective with their sales coaching efforts. One in a series on sales coaching...Read more

Our research shows that coaching is rarely emphasized in sales organizations, and most aren't very good at it. But it’s often considered important – by salespeople, organizations, and managers themselves – who overwhelmingly say coaching matters to the sales force’s success.* They're not wrong. Our research also shows that sales...Read more

The Sales Management Association has added new job descriptions to its sales force job descriptions library. Each job description includes detailed job responsibilities, accountabilities and performance measures,organizational alignment, and suggested qualifications. Our members find these job descriptions useful as a starting point when customizing their own sales organization's job descriptions....Read more

Sales forecasting routinely tops lists of our sales leadership's most troublesome challenges. In fact, our research shows that just 41% of firms consider their forecasting efforts effective. And forecasting consumes substantial amounts of sales organization time and attention, sapping productivity even while yielding sub par outcomes. This webinar addresses the...Read more