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HBR Guide to Motivating People (HBR Guide Series)
book

HBR Guide to Motivating People (HBR Guide Series)

by Harvard Business Review
May 2019
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
272 pages
4h 10m
English
Harvard Business Review Press
Content preview from HBR Guide to Motivating People (HBR Guide Series)

CHAPTER 7

Motivating Salespeople: What Really Works

by Thomas Steenburgh and Michael Ahearne

Sales executives are always looking for ingenious ways to motivate their teams. They stage grand kickoff meetings to announce new bonus programs. They promise exotic trips to rainmakers. When business is slow, they hold sales contests. If sales targets are missed, they blame the sales compensation plan and start from square one.

The finance organization, meanwhile, views the comp plan as an expense to manage. That’s not surprising: Sales force compensation represents the single largest marketing investment for most B2B companies. In aggregate, U.S. companies alone spend more than $800 billion on it each year—three times more than they spend on advertising. ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781633696778