• Downsizing the sales force to cut costs can cause revenue losses that make things even worse.


• A larger sales force makes sense when the long-term impact of sales force effort is accounted for.


• Implement sizing changes quickly – phased growth or reduction is rarely optimal.


• Better allocation of sales effort often leads to greater gains than adding salespeople.

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• Study the complexity and diversity of your customers, products, and selling activities to determine how specialized your salespeople need to be.


• Optimize the balance between effectiveness gains (higher results) and efficiency improvements (lower costs) when structuring your sales force.


• Integrate sales force effort with alternative ways to reach markets such as the Internet, telemarketing, and part-time or contract sales forces.

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• Balance workload across territories to maximize market coverage; balance potential across territories to give all salespeople a fair chance to succeed.


• Develop a benchmark alignment centrally, using consistent, objective criteria for all sales areas, and then allow first-line sales managers to adjust that benchmark to account for local differences and to enhance acceptance by the sales force.


• Audit your alignment annually.

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• Do not rely on interviewing alone to identify the best candidates, but also use screening techniques that allow you to observe the behaviors critical to a candidate’s success.


• Develop success profiles to guide your search, and adapt those success profiles as products and markets evolve.


• Avoid “warm body” hiring.


• Recruit constantly.


• Assign your best people to recruiting.

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• Do rapid prototyping.


• Emphasize action learning, rather than passive learning.


• Recognize the advantages of individualized training.


• Structure training modules around actual business problems.


• Provide stretch experiences for salespeople.


• Consider using the Internet to deliver information-based training.

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• Treat the first-line sales manager as a pivotal person in the selling organization.


• Recognize that the sales manager's role is different from that of the salesperson.


• Develop sales manager success profiles and select the right people.


• Provide excellent sales management training.


• Consider using "360° evaluations" when assessing the sales management team.

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• Use both extrinsic rewards, such as money, and intrinsic rewards, such as recognition.


• Ensure that the compensation plan is compatible with your sales and marketing strategy.


• Place more emphasis on salary (vs. incentive pay) when performance is hard to measure or when non-sales force factors have a large influence on sales.


• Invest in a good quota-setting process to avoid over-paying or under-paying salespeople.


• Use the incentive plan as one item in a portfolio of tools to influence salespeople’s behaviors.


• Test new incentive plans before implementing them.


• Keep the incentive plan simple.

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