5 Best Practices to Guide Your Sales Compensation Redesign

By Mike Emerson

For salespeople, the top predictor of income should be performance, not tenure. But all too often, it’s the other way around.

The truth is traditional sales compensation plans that are tied to territory and tenure no longer work. If you haven’t already updated your sales compensation plan to meet pandemic-induced changes in how sales teams interact with customers, it’s time to act. The key is to make sure your updated sales compensation plan is the right one.

Companies restructuring their sales compensation plans to meet the moment should take note of these five best practices:

Use the pay plan to incentivize sales teams.
Design for sustainable health.
Determine the best performance program for you.
Pay people according to their work.
Increase risk and reward.

Read the full article on naw.org: 5 Best Practices to Guide Your Sales Compensation Redesign – Value Creation Strategy #18 – NAW

Mike Emerson

Mike Emerson has been a IRCG partner since 2004. Mike joined Indian River in 1998 and has worked with hundreds of distributors and manufacturers of all sizes and within many lines of trade.

As a Partner in the firm, Mike has managed a broad array of projects. His main focus areas include: compensation design, strategy facilitation, market research, and data modeling and analysis.

Mike writes extensively on distributor and marketing channel topics and is frequently quoted on contemporary issues. He has authored four books, published by NAW: What’s Your Plan? Smart Salesforce Compensation in Wholesale Distribution, Working at Cross-Purposes: How Distributors and Manufacturers Can Manage Conflict Successfully, Value Creation Strategies for Wholesaler-Distributors and What’s the Right Plan? Effective Sales Incentive Design for Wholesaler-Distributors. Mike is also a university lecturer on marketing topics.

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5 Best Practices to Guide Your Sales Compensation Redesign

Mike Emerson

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