A new staffing industry sales force compensation study — done by sales strategy consulting firm SalesGlobe in conjunction with Staffing Industry Analysts — found five keys to a successful compensation plan. The study was based on a survey of staffing firms, and the keys include:

• “Clearly define the sales strategy and roles, and align you compensation plan.” Sales compensation should align with the sales strategy and motivate the sales organization.
• “Differentiate top performers.” Pay top performers significantly more than average and low performers.
• “Keep your plan simple and clear.” Pay for three or fewer performance measures that match the strategy, and don’t put any less than 10 percent of target incentive on any one measure.
• “Formalize the solution selling process and use sales to compensate it.” Solution selling includes how a staffing firm moves from a transactional sales process to a more solution-oriented sales process that may address unique customer needs or business challenges.
• “Develop a market opportunity-driven quota-setting process.” Quotas are the lynchpin between pay and performance.

The report also looks at challenges in the compensation process and how base pay and target compensation has changed.

Staffing Industry Analysts corporate members can download a summary of the report, by clicking here.

In addition, SalesGlobe will be doing a webinar on the executive summary on Sept. 18.

For more information, click here.