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

When to Include Support Jobs in the Sales Compensation Plan

We are often asked to help companies decide whether or not to include sales support jobs in the sales compensation plan. Often, at the outset of a conversation with sales managers, human resources professionals, or both, we are told that they have concluded that their sales support staff jobs should participate in the plan. However, either the business general manager or the corporate human resources executives will say, "But these jobs aren't sales jobs, so why should we approve their participation in the sales compensation plan?" And so the debate begins about whether or not to provide an incentive pay opportunity for sales support jobs.

In Chapter 4, we provided a decision tree that ...