Search Results
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Get Sales Compensation Right to Recruit Winning Salespeople
- August 13, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Sales candidates, especially good ones, are exponentially more difficult to attract than they were just two years ago. We regularly observe clients struggling when it comes to getting resumes from quality candidates. One of the reasons is compensation.
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A Different Look at Sales Compensation
- April 6, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
With a salaried position, salespeople are essentially on a fixed income – perhaps a more attractive fixed income than a retiree, but fixed none the less. And these days, with most people living at or above their means, fixed simply becomes another word for broke! The thought of coming up with $75,000 in discretionary funds is daunting unless a salesperson is the rare exception who has been squirreling away most of his income. This is the world of the salaried salesperson. Play it safe, but don’t expect any big commission checks.
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Top 7 Sales Force Compensation Secrets
- February 28, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A reader asked an interesting question about the relationship between sales assessment performance and income.
“If someone does well on the assessment but never earned more than $100,000, should that set off some red flags since $100,000 is the high water mark of sales success?”
It’s a great question.
Sales income is all relative.
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When it Comes to Compensation Sales is Not Like Baseball
- December 9, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The other day a client asked whether salespeople can make the jump from earning $85K to a position that could pay them $150K.
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Sales Force Compensation – X Marks the Spot
- July 15, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Compensation is usually simpler than most companies make it. Most companies seem to either over compensate or under compensate on salary. Most companies tend to do the same with commissions.
There are three key points in time with compensation. They are:
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But I’m a Sales Guy! The Story of Motivation and Compensation
- June 7, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A Sales VP and his CEO were in the conference room and each time the CEO brought up a problem, we asked the Sales VP to elaborate. Each time he began with, “Well I’m a sales guy so I know this stuff…”
Yes and No.
Yes, he’s a sales guy. But no, he doesn’t know this stuff. If he knew this stuff the problems and challenges in their organization wouldn’t exist and the two of them wouldn’t be sitting in front of us in the conference room. This isn’t at all unusual either.
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Does Changing Compensation Increase Sales?
- July 31, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One of the attendees asked how she could change the compensation for her highly paid, salaried producers, in order to provide the incentive to sell more.
If that’s all it takes, getting salespeople to sell more would be easy!
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Sales Compensation Changes Fail to Change Results
- March 7, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Great intentions but lousy results – it’s not unusual. But why? Let’s explore the reasons behind designing and implementing programs like these.
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Sales Candidates, Sales Compensation and the Number of Resumes
- July 31, 2007
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
So what can you do if you have to fill one of those sales positions that won’t pay the sales major league minimum? You must somehow rework your compensation plan, and raise the bar in terms of what a good salesperson should generate in revenue.
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Dunkin Donuts – Time to Make Sales Compensation and Sales Competencies Work
- March 11, 2007
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You don’t have to be a fast-food franchise to learn from this lesson either. Most companies are short-sighted when it comes to compensation and don’t see how paying more gets you more. Of course a top salesperson costs double what an ineffective salesperson costs. But a top salesperson will sell three to five times more than an ineffective salesperson. In that case, how could you not structure your compensation around a top salesperson?