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

Summing Up

Sales managers and team leaders have the responsibility for supervising frontline resources. As such, the scope and complexities of their jobs generally increase as a company grows and changes. Today more and more companies expect their sales managers to be sales strategists in addition to effectively managing salespeople. They have to deal with top management's expectations, customer expectations, and the resources—salespeople and others—they supervise.

In response to these new or changed expectations, sales managers take on one of three different roles: the coach, the superseller, or the strategist/business planner. The exact role depends upon the company growth phase and business objectives at a particular point in time. While the ...