{"id":711,"date":"2007-03-01T13:38:51","date_gmt":"2007-03-01T19:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/03\/communicating-your-sales-strategy\/"},"modified":"2014-02-15T14:59:27","modified_gmt":"2014-02-15T20:59:27","slug":"communicating-your-sales-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/03\/communicating-your-sales-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Communicating Your Sales Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Managesmarter.com&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.managesmarter.com\/msg\/content_display\/sales\/e3i4c9971cdfb34b2e6cba3450901b1bea8\" target=\"_blank\">Crystal Clear Communication<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>To hear Scott Glatstein tell it, <em>as much as three quarters<\/em> of American companies &#8220;do not broadly communicate their sales strategy&#8221; to their sales teams. The result, not surprisingly, is a breakdown in the sales process.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Aligning the sales compensation plan with the desired business outcome is a critical component of sales management.\u00a0 One constant with salespeople &#8211; they will work the compensation plan to maximize their reward.\u00a0 The article contains a great example:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One giant food company Glatstein worked with had lost $20 million in a year because of out-of-date products. The solution from corporate executives was to motivate sellers to avoid food spoilage by pinning 40 percent of their bonuses on keeping food fresh. But that tactic compensated salespeople for a market condition, not their work. The result? The reps sold less product to make sure no food spoiled on the shelves, and <strong>the company&#8217;s revenue dropped 20 percent in the first four months<\/strong> after the plan was initiated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ouch &#8211; talk about misaligning your comp plan with your business goals.\u00a0 In a previous sales management role, I worked with an older plant manager who helped me out immensely.\u00a0 One of the nuggets of wisdom he shared with me &#8211; whenever he had a new job come into the shop, he put his laziest machinist on it.\u00a0 I asked him why and he told me that the lazy machinist would find the most efficient process for making the part (he wanted to do the least amount of work).<\/p>\n<p>It would appear the salespeople in the above example\u00a0made the most beneficial adjustment for the revised comp plan.\u00a0 You can&#8217;t blame them, they simply reacted to the reward structure that was placed before them.\u00a0 Select Metrix will be expanding our service offering soon to assist you in this endeavor.\u00a0 Look for more news about this topic in the next few weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Managesmarter.com&#8217;s Crystal Clear Communication: To hear Scott Glatstein tell it, as much as three quarters of American companies &#8220;do not broadly communicate their sales strategy&#8221; to their sales teams. The result, not surprisingly, is a breakdown in the sales process. Aligning the sales compensation plan with the desired business outcome is a critical component of sales management.\u00a0 One constant with salespeople &#8211; they will work the compensation plan to maximize their reward.\u00a0 The article contains a great example: One giant food company Glatstein worked with had lost $20 million in a year because of out-of-date products. The solution from corporate executives was to motivate sellers to avoid food spoilage&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/03\/communicating-your-sales-strategy\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-compensation","category-sales-management"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-bt","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1667,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/07\/you-get-what-you-pay-salespeople-for\/","url_meta":{"origin":711,"position":0},"title":"You Get What You Pay Salespeople For","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"July 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"We have really come to enjoy Dave Stein's posts.\u00a0 They are timely and cut straight to\u00a0the heart of the issue.\u00a0\u00a0Today's post is no exception.\u00a0 Working strictly on the sales side of organizations, one of the areas we look at while profiling their sale is compensation.\u00a0 Most\u00a0importantly, we look to see\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Compensation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Compensation","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/compensation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1328,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/12\/compensation-keep-it-simple\/","url_meta":{"origin":711,"position":1},"title":"Compensation &#8211; Keep It Simple","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Every year we find December to be a fertile time for sourcing salespeople.\u00a0 One of the biggest reasons - the upcoming year's compensation plan.\u00a0 More specifically, new commission plans tied to new quotas.\u00a0 The salespeople receive the new plan and are, well, disgruntled.\u00a0 Or ticked off. Good salespeople tend to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Compensation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Compensation","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/compensation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":144,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/06\/turnover-trouble\/","url_meta":{"origin":711,"position":2},"title":"Turnover Trouble","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"June 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"There was a good article in SalesForceXP's recent newsletter (sorry no link) that quotes 2 recent surveys conducted by Miller Heiman and the Hay Group specifically looking at turnover amongst salespeople. The research concluded that not only is finding good salespeople tough (knew that), but keeping them is equally as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1501,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/04\/sales-retention-through-compensation\/","url_meta":{"origin":711,"position":3},"title":"Sales Retention Through Compensation","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"April 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Commission-only sales plans are risky in my opinion.\u00a0 I know they are the truest form of selling - you eat what you kill.\u00a0 I simply think that many salespeople view this structure as a lack of commitment from the company.\u00a0 I'm not saying that is accurate, but I have talked\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Compensation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Compensation","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/compensation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1676,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/07\/compensation-consternation\/","url_meta":{"origin":711,"position":4},"title":"Compensation Consternation","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"July 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I know, lame title, but I couldn't resist. ManageSmarter.com offers up this article - Compensation Complexity Hinders Sales - regarding current compensation plans.\u00a0 Here are some numbers they quote within the article (my editing): Only 41% of sales leaders were satisfied with their current compensation plans (down from 59% two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Compensation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Compensation","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/compensation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2029,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/05\/preset-for-mediocrity\/","url_meta":{"origin":711,"position":5},"title":"Preset For Mediocrity","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"SellingPower.com\u2019s article deals with something we have seen throughout our many years of sales assessing, hiring and coaching \u2013 financial comfort zones.\u00a0 Here is a good explanation of it from the article (emphasis mine): Eker stumbled on the concept of financial blueprints while running his first company, a fitness business.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Compensation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Compensation","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/compensation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2552,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions\/2552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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