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

Chapter 9. COMPENSATING SELLERS AND TEAMS FOR LARGE SALES

The notion that selling is selling regardless of what is being sold is no longer a widely held belief among top managers. This is particularly true in the "large deal" sales arena. Recently, a general manager in the chemicals industry told us about his desire to substantially increase the average size of a "deal." "There was a time," he said, "when we had as many as 5,000 customers and our typical sales representative sold fifteen to twenty deals a year with an average sale of $500,000. Today, we deploy business development managers who sell two or three deals a year that fall in the range of $20 to $40 million. We had to make this change quickly to enhance our competitive position with ...