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

Three Pivotal Sales Manager Roles

Today's sales manager job is changing to meet top managers', customers', and salespeople's expectations. We have noticed that, in response to these new or changing expectations, sales managers take on one of three different roles. The exact one depends on the growth phase and business objectives of the company at a particular point in time. While the sales manager's duties, tasks, and responsibilities are similar across the three roles, we have observed that the emphasis placed on these elements is quite different. Those differences in how managers play the role have significant implications for the way the company compensates them.

Conventional wisdom suggests that sales managers are paid based on the performance ...