New book tackles top sales compensation challenges

• Adapting compensation to changing sales roles as field salespeople increasingly share sales responsibility with digital and inside sales channels, thus masking the impact of individual salespeople on sales outcomes.
• Motivating the sales force with more than money as companies seek to engage salespeople with different motivational needs and millennial workers introduce new diversity to sales forces.
• Creating incentives that drive the top and bottom lines as many companies struggle to develop financial metrics and incentive plans that encourage salespeople to focus on driving profits, in addition to sales.
• Establishing a global sales compensation program as more companies that sell around the world want to implement sales compensation frameworks that align with global sales models and create efficiencies in plan management and administration.
• Using analytics to boost sales compensation impact as new data and information technology allow companies to provide salespeople with more powerful feedback and enable health checks for assessing and fine-tuning compensation plans on an ongoing basis.

The authors also address persistent sales compensation challenges such as quota setting and change management.

In addition to strategic insights and advice, the book includes case studies from across industries, including medical devices, financial services, pharmaceuticals and technology.

"Changing customer behaviors, driven in part by advancements in information technology and digital channels, pose new challenges for sales leaders as they seek to design high-impact compensation plans," said Chad Albrecht, ZS principal and co-author of "Sales Compensation Solutions." "Further, as global competition continues to heat up, we aimed to provide sales leaders the concrete solutions they need to drive sales force performance."

The authors draw on original research about motivating sales forces that include a mix of baby boomers, Gen Xers and millennials. According to Steve Marley, ZS principal and book co-author, "Many of the things we take for granted as fundamental to a sales compensation program are seen differently across the various generations. For example, we observed generational differences in preferences for pay level and mix, recognition programs and even plan types. Companies must understand the motivational preferences of the generations in their sales forces – as well as the individuals within those generations ­­– to develop optimal reward structures and strategies."

The new book builds on previous books about sales compensation by the authors, including "The Complete Guide to Sales Force Incentive Compensation" (Zoltners, Sinha and Lorimer) and "The Future of Sales Compensation" (Albrecht and Marley).

"Sales Compensation Solutions" is available on Amazon.

About the Book
Title: "Sales Compensation Solutions"
Authors: Andris Zoltners, Prabhakant Sinha, Chad Albrecht, Steve Marley and Sally Lorimer
Pub. Date: July 10, 2017
Price: $24.95
Pages: 170
ISBN: 978-0-9853436-9-9
Website: https://www.zs.com/publications/books/sales-compensation-solutions.aspx

About ZS
ZS is the world's largest firm focused exclusively on helping companies improve overall performance and grow revenue and market share, through end-to-end sales and marketing solutions—from customer insights and strategy to analytics, operations and technology. More than 4,500 ZS professionals in 22 offices worldwide draw on deep industry and domain expertise to deliver impact for clients across multiple industries. To learn more, visit www.zs.com or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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