Compensating New Sales Roles: How to Design Rewards That Work in Today's Selling Environment

Compensating Presales Jobs

For years, many companies have included presales jobs in the sales compensation plan. This is especially true in companies that are engaged in business-to-business selling of complex or technically sophisticated products, services, or solutions. For some of these companies, providing an incentive pay opportunity to the sales support jobs has given them both a competitive advantage in the labor market and the successful market message of customer-centered sales processes. Consider these two examples.

Medical diagnostic equipment manufacturer. This company sells test kits and analyzers to hospitals and free-standing laboratories. The sales process focuses on long-term, repeat business with named accounts, and focused ...