For many readers, this is often a tense and harried time of balancing efforts to plan for the new year while not losing sight of all that's required to ensure a successful close to this year. Add on the present challenges of the economy and it may seem an impossible task. In light of that, my wish for you is that this Thanksgiving holiday will be a time to reflect on and savor all the things you count as blessings in your life.

This month's article presents excerpts from a virtual roundtable discussion I participated in recently for Synygy Magazine, where I was asked to provide insights and opinions on the affect of the struggling economy on sales compensation planning and execution.

As always, I'm interested to hear from you. Let me know if you find this month's article to be of value or if you have any suggestions for future newsletter topics.

Best regards,

J. Mark Davis
Managing Principal
Valitus Group, Inc.

In November 2008 I was invited to participate in a virtual roundtable discussion for Synygy Magazine on sales compensation in the context of the current economic turbulence. I and three other consultants participated in the roundtable, offering our insights to a series of questions. As a partial preview of the forthcoming article (due out in January), the roundtable questions and my responses are recorded below.

Synygy: How has the volatile economy started to affect sales organizations and how they're approaching their compensation plans?

Davis: Companies are increasingly rationalizing every dollar they spend. It was popular before the economy headed downward, but companies are putting increasing effort into trying to measure and ensure a reasonable return on their sales compensation investments. The first challenge is one of understanding the role of sales compensation and, on that basis, defining success. More often than not, it involves more than simply dividing compensation expenditures by the corresponding revenue production.

Synygy: What aspects of sales operations (e.g., compensation, quotas, training, territories, channels, strategic account management, etc.) are being affected most, and how?

Continue to full article...

Attend the WorldatWork course that Mark teaches, "Sales Compensation for Complex Selling Models," on March 18 in Boston. (Get details...)

Mark now teaches the new one-day WorldatWork course, "Competitive Market Pay: Pricing Sales Positions," to be held on June 10 in San Jose.
(Get details...)

Mark also is a contributing author to The Sales Compensation Handbook - Second Edition. Order this seminal text on Amazon.com.