Paying for Sales Performance: New Research for Designing High Impact Sales Incentive Plans

Relative to other functions within today's organizations, sales leaders and their sales forces are uniquely focused on driving performance in every minute, hour, day, month and quarter of the business year. To do otherwise is to sacri ce sales and pro ts, and to diminish the satisfaction of customers, which can lead to the poor performance of the entire business and failure to deliver satisfactory returns for shareholders. As a result of this hyper-performance orientation, sales incentive plans receive a great deal of attention and are subject to constant review, helpful suggestions and nitpicking from within the sales organization and from the entire company.