Reese Bacon, Principal, Mercer

Mr. Bacon is a Principal in Mercer's Human Capital Business and specializes in sales force effectiveness issues including process and role clarification, sales productivity, competencies for selection and development, performance measurement and goal setting best practices, sales incentive design for sales forces in manufacturing and service industries.  He also leads the Sales Effectiveness segment in Mercer's West Unit.  In this capacity he develops new business, and manages client engagements, primarily helping sales managers improve the success of their sales efforts. Mr. Bacon serves on the firm's Healthcare, Life Sciences and Financial Services industry teams.

Mr. Bacon consults with a variety of technology, healthcare and general industry companies. Recent clients include Google, Intel, McAfee, Microsoft, NetRatings, Oracle, salesforce.com, Yahoo, Aetna, Blue Shield of California, Florida and South Carolina, HeallthNet, Wellpoint, America's Choice, Bosley Medical, California State Automobile Association, Dreyer's Ice Cream, United Airlines and Zenith Insurance.

Prior to joining Mercer, Mr. Bacon was an internal compensation consultant with Temple University Hospital, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Rockwell International, Clorox, Hewlett-Packard, Wells Fargo Bank, Cigna, and Kaiser Permanente.  In many of these roles he designed broad- base all employee incentive programs and sales compensation plans for small business, middle market, and national accounts sales forces.  In addition Mr. Bacon spent a part of his career in brand management including marketing analysis, product development, consumer promotion, and advertising.

Ralph Grimse, Principal, Mercer

Mr. Grimse is a Principal at Mercer's Chicago office.  He specializes in transformation efforts to improve the effectiveness of the sales organization.  Sales effectiveness encompasses everything from the go-to-market strategy and optimizing the coverage and organization models to developing compensation plans to engage and motivate the sales force. His work at Mercer spans a wide variety of industries including technology, manufacturing, distribution, healthcare and consumer packaged goods.

Ralph has spoken at numerous conferences on the topics of sales performance and rewards. Recently he's spoken on "Transforming a Sales Organization for Future Growth" and "Rewards for the Next Generation". Prior to joining Mercer, Ralph was a consultant at Andersen.

Steve Grossman, Principal, Mercer  

Mr. Grossman is a Principal in Mercer's Human Capital Business leading the Sales Effectiveness group in the Americas.  The Sales Effectiveness group helps clients focus sales effort on the right customer segments, optimize sales and sales management processes, and effectively motivate and enable their sales people to exceed expectations. Steve has particular expertise in helping clients manage through the difficult process of driving change in a sales environment.

For more than twenty years, Steve has consulted on domestic and international sales force management and sales compensation issues as well as marketing, competitive analysis and organization effectiveness.  His clients are from a wide range of industries, including: Media and entertainment, consumer products, distribution, hospitality, medical products/systems/services, professional and business services, financial services, telecommunications, hi-tech, and general manufacturing. 

Before joining Mercer, he served as managing director of a firm that provides sales and marketing effectiveness training and consulting services.  Earlier, he was a principal in the sales force management practice of another major international consulting firm.

A frequent speaker on sales effectiveness, Steve has authored numerous articles and is a principal contributor to several books on various sales effectiveness topics including high performing sales efforts (Journal of Organization Excellence, Selling Power Magazine) and sales compensation (WorldatWork). Steve's recent "ground breaking" research and client work into the effectiveness and role of the front line sales manager is uncovering powerful opportunities to improve the performance of this often underleveraged, but pivotal, role in a sales effort. He has written and spoken on this topic at WorldatWork and other leading sales and management conferences, meetings and publications.