Coming soon · Book Profile
Sales Compensation Solutions_ Addressing the Toughest Sales Incentive Issues in Today’s Changing World
A practical guide to designing and implementing sales compensation plans that motivate salespeople and drive profitable growth amid a rapidly changing selling environment.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
Written by the sales-force effectiveness experts at ZS Associates, Sales Compensation Solutions tackles the toughest, most current challenges in sales incentive compensation—from aligning pay with changing multichannel sales roles and motivating a generationally diverse workforce, to driving profit rather than just revenue, going global, using analytics, setting motivating quotas, and managing plan change. Grounded in decades of consulting with hundreds of sales forces and annual Incentive Practices Research, the book blends strategic insight, pragmatic frameworks, and illustrative case studies to help sales, HR, finance, and operations leaders create plans that are fair, fiscally responsible, and aligned with a cohesive sales strategy. It argues that compensation is powerful but never a stand-alone cure-all, and shows how to make it work within the broader sales-force system.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A sales, compensation, HR, finance, or operations leader responsible for designing and implementing sales compensation plans that drive high performance in a changing world.
- The problem
- Traditional sales compensation plans are misaligned with today's multichannel roles, profitability expectations, global scale, diverse workforce, and quota-setting realities. They feel anxious and uncertain about how to design fair, motivating plans and worried their decisions could hurt the sales force and their own standing.
- The plan
- Understand the role of compensation within the aligned sales-force system.
- Make the four fundamental design decisions: pay level, pay mix, metrics, payout formula.
- Align pay with changing sales roles and reduce over-reliance on individual short-term incentives where influence is shared.
- Build a varied motivation program beyond money for a diverse workforce.
- Tie incentives to profitability where profit is strategic and controllable.
- The payoff
- A motivated sales force with manageable turnover of talent. · High levels of quality sales effort aligned with strategy. · Better, more profitable financial results and fair, understood pay.
See our guide
Related profiles we’ve built
Additional reading
- Sales Compensation Surveys (Appendix B) · Various Third-Party Providers
The book recommends using external survey data to set competitive pay levels. Appendix B provides a list of survey sources for readers to conduct their own market research.
- Software Vendors—Sales Compensation Administration Software (Appendix C) · Various Third-Party Vendors
The book emphasizes the need for automation in administering complex plans. Appendix C lists vendors that provide these solutions for further investigation by the reader.
- The Sales Growth Imperative · David J. Cichelli
Written by the same author, this book likely provides a broader strategic context on revenue growth, within which sales compensation is a key lever.
- Sales Compensation Almanac · The Alexander Group (David J. Cichelli's firm)
This annual publication provides updated data, trends, and benchmarks in sales compensation, serving as a contemporary supplement to the book's foundational principles.
- Organization Design for Performance: A Step-By-Step Guide · Cedric Ng Mong Shen
This book is relevant because 'Design' is the second dimension of organizational effectiveness discussed in Step 1. It provides a deeper framework for structuring departments and companies, which directly impacts the sales function's effectiveness.
- Designing Salary Structures: A Step-By-Step Guide · Cedric Ng Mong Shen
Directly complements the main book by detailing how to create the base salary structures upon which the incentive portion of total cash compensation is built.
- Predictive HR Analytics: A Step-by-Step Guide · Cedric Ng Mong Shen
Relevant for more advanced practitioners who want to use data analysis (as mentioned in Step 9) to test hypotheses about plan effectiveness and predict which factors drive sales success.
- Designing a Sales Commission · Jerome A. Colletti & Mary S. Fiss
This book references it for the detailed mechanics of designing commission formulas (e.g., flat and tiered rates) that are used as examples for new product and new account incentives.
- Designing a Sales Bonus · Jerome A. Colletti & Mary S. Fiss
This book references it for the detailed mechanics of designing bonus formulas (e.g., step rates) that are used as examples for special incentive schemes.
- Setting the Pay Opportunity for a Sales Job · Jerome A. Colletti & Mary S. Fiss
Explains foundational concepts like 'target incentive opportunity' and 'leverage,' which are necessary prerequisites for calculating the appropriate size of a special incentive.