Workshops

Thursday, 10:30 am to 11:45 am

Developing a Best-in-Class Sales Incentive Governance Model
Workshop Code: C02TH1

With increasing scrutiny on incentive plans and the behavior they drive, it is more important than ever to ensure that there is an effective governance process established for your sales incentive plans, from a design, implementation, approval and ongoing administration perspective. Towers Watson and American Express will discuss American Express' current governance transformation and how it has taken best-practice governance concepts and applied them to a global business. Learn how to develop a world-class process for ensuring the incentive plans are effective, appropriately aligned with risk and return, and governed effectively.

Going Beyond Reporting: Delivering Information as a Strategic Advantage
Workshop Code: C03TH1

In this session Greg Livengood of OpenSymmetry and Marisa Massie of Salesforce.com will explore the emerging trends in Reporting and Analytics as it relates to Sales Compensation and how companies are leveraging technology to enhance productivity and provide better transparency for both the sales and executive teams.  Through research, best practices and real world experience, Greg will provide specific data points to the audience on what works and what doesn’t when it comes to building and deploying a reporting solution and ultimately increase sales.  Some of the key topics being covered during this session will include but not be limited to: What-If Modeling, Dashboards, and Business Self-Service Reporting and Analysis. 

A Primer in Establishing and Optimizing Your Sales Quotas
Workshop Code: C12TH1

The need to set quotas for salespeople has often been cited as one of the largest challenges companies face with quota-based sales compensation plans. The WorldatWork 2010 Sales Compensation Programs and Practices Survey revealed the severity of the risk inherent in this challenge: 40% of companies that felt their new compensation plans had not been successful reported that the inability to set quotas was a key contributor to this failure - the most common area reported. In this session, experts will share common methods for allocating quotas, best practices for selecting a methodology to fit your sales strategy and market maturity, and effective ways to communicate these quotas to the salespeople. Tools to self-diagnose the effectiveness of your quota program will be provided.

Thursday, 12:45 pm to 2:00 pm

Sales Force Planning to Optimize Compensation Cost and Customer Coverage
Workshop Code: C05TH2

Scott and Marilu will build off of their popular article from Workspan to conduct an interactive session that takes the audience through the process of identifying key levers available to address sales force productivity and compensation cost. The authors will break sales force planning down into nine basic steps and give the audience choices to make along the way. This entertaining session will compare different routes to create the optimal business outcomes - revenue growth, profitability, compensation cost, and employee engagement. Along the way, audience members will learn: how to tell when it's not compensation that is the problem, how to use compensation with talent management to get the best results, how to assess the value of high cost sales resources, and how to align human capital and compensation solutions with business strategy

Forefront of the Global Corporate Landscape: Sales Performance Management Outsourcing and Managed Services
Workshop Code: C09TH2

Sales Performance Management has become a competitive asset in the global corporate landscape. Progressive and traditional companies alike are searching for ways to squeeze more out of their incentive plans and processes. As this support area moves from the back office to the strategic forefront, the tools and skill sets continue to evolve. Join us to discuss the latest developments in building a dynamic support structure for incentive compensation and hear a first-hand account from a major corporation about the benefits of managed services. Look at ongoing challenges associated with keeping an effective SPM system and related business processes working efficiently and effectively, identify how to gauge the real cost of supporting an enterprise-level SPM system, and review the latest alternative: managed services offered by specialty firms.

Focus to Grow: How a Simple Single Component Plan Can Focus Your Salespeople on Growth
Workshop Code: C13TH2

Does your established business need to make growth a top priority? Do you suspect your sales people are little too comfortable with performance that isn't quite what the business needs? Do you wonder why the commissions offered in your plans don't seem to be enough to make the growth happen? Mike D'Adamo is an experienced sales leader (formerly VP, Sales at HD Supply) who is now leading a smaller established business through a stunning growth phase. CriterionBrock's compensation plans are a key part of their strategy to transform the organization and take it to the next level. The plans are so straightforward that the growth imperative is unmistakable. The plan designs are simple, but the concept is powerful.

Thursday , 2:30 pm to 3:45 pm

From Compromise to Drive: Shifting Gears to Rev Up Your Sales Team
Workshop Code: C04TH3

"Something's just not right with sales!" Over the years, growth, contraction, acquisitions, spinoffs, and good and bad change, companies often find their salesforce seems to lack focus and drive. Sales is in "idle" and their efforts are compromised by the sales model. This session provides the characteristics and causes of a compromised sales organization. Using two actual company examples, attendees will understand symptoms of a compromised salesforce as well as a process, tools and guidelines to shift the gears of your sales team out of idle and back into drive, enabling strategic growth and profitable revenue. Journey from the "current state" through "change" to arrive at enhanced organizations, roles and programs supporting the new sales models.

Audit Your Sales Incentive Plan
Workshop Code: C08TH3

US companies pay out about $200B in sales incentive compensation payments every year. This money is being invested by companies under the belief that it is effectively motivating the sales force to create increased revenue and profit for the organization in a manner aligned with company goals. Small improvements in the effectiveness of your sales incentive plan can have significant impacts on revenue and profitability, and auditing the effectiveness of your sales incentive plan on a regular basis is the only way to know for sure whether your incentive plan is optimally designed. In this workshop, you will learn effective ways to audit your sales incentive plan, as well as best practice benchmarks for comparison. You will also see the details of how Office Depot's sales incentive audit allowed them to dramatically simplify their plan and generate superior business results.

Automating Sales Compensation: A Disruptive Technology
Workshop Code: C14TH3

The design and administration of sales compensation programs has become more complex and challenging for organizations. Sales roles have become more specialized, sales channels have multiplied, and data and systems issues have skyrocketed. The traditional method of manually calculating commission and bonus payments or cutting and pasting spreadsheets to create a "master" sheet for calculation have gone to the archives. Web-based technologies are increasingly changing the way that we manage sales compensation. These disruptive technologies turn the landscape upside-down for the sales administrator. They provide "real-time" information, increase the accuracy and consistency of the data, and enable sales management to make better decisions on sales performance. The Chicago Sun Times is a high-profile, deadline-driven media organization that has embraced the use of technology to automate the design and administration of their compensation for advertising sales personnel. Their case study will reveal the issues, opportunities and teamwork necessary to automate sales compensation -- and deliver results.

Sales Essentials for Sales Compensation Specialists - How to be a World Class "Salesman" for Your Ideas
Workshop Code: C19TH3

Mercer and Miller-Heiman Sales Performance Experts will present principles and techniques from world class sales methodology training courses and lead a discussion around the best ways to apply these principles to enhancing the skills of Compensation Specialists who must "sell" their ideas to executive leadership. At the end of the session, participants will be knowledgeable about how to clearly set their objectives, how to assess their various stakeholders and "buyers", determine what are the potential obstacles to adoption, what will be a win-win solution for all stakeholders and how to position their ideas and recommendations to get them approved quickly.

Thursday , 4:15 pm to 5:30 pm

Is Designing Sales Compensation for Strategic Account Managers a Chess Game?
Workshop Code: C06TH4

Big, important, high-potential accounts require polished sales talent acting in ways to improve the business results of both their customers and company. What does this mean for sales compensation design? Does this role require a separate set of design best practices? Do you have to have a specialized design process (or, game of chess) to get it right? This session will position attendees to answer these questions. Attendees will learn best practices and trends for strategic account manager plan design, understand how this role is different and the consequential impacts on the compensation plan and the process by which it is designed. Hear how a top Fortune 100 company has successfully put this all into action.

The Right Comp Plan + The Wrong Person = Disaster
Workshop Code: C11TH4

According to Chally's World Class Sales Benchmarking Research, 65% of salespeople who fail do so not because they can't sell, but rather, they are not aligned with the correct sales role that plays to their strengths. A one-size-salesperson-fits-all does not work in today's complex selling model. You now need hunters and farmers, strategic account executives, product/service specialist, inside and outside sales and channel partners, and so on. Just as you segment your customers you should do so with your sales talent and then align the right compensation plan to each to ensure that the plans are aligned across the roles and jointly support the strategic direction for the organization. What is the financial impact of having the wrong person in the wrong role?

Keys to Success: Implementing a Sales Performance Management Solution
Workshop Code: C15TH4

Implementing an incentive compensation management/sales performance management system presents some big challenges for many organizations. Hear real-world examples and lessons learned that will provide practical guidance on how to be successful as you look to implement new processes and technology into your organization. In this session, the presenters will cover a number of topics including: - Key considerations for reporting - Things to consider for testing, history tracking and data integration - The role of information technology groups - Ensuring your groups are aligned to the same goals.

Friday , 8:45 am to 10:00 am

Are Outside Sales Reps Entitled to Overtime Pay?
Workshop Code: C01F1

Two federal appeals courts have recently reached quite different opinions about whether pharmaceutical sales reps are entitled to overtime pay. The rulings suggest that companies are in for a battle over the exemption status of their outside salespeople. This is not a new phenomenon. While companies have addressed the FLSA status for inside sales jobs throughout the past decade, there remains an assumption that "outside sales" is de facto "exempt." It is likely that this question will eventually be addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court; however, practitioners are being asked now for advice on how to determine the exemption status of key jobs in the sales organization that work with customers and prospects outside an office environment. The objective of this workshop is to present and discuss requirements for exemption status and determine how outside sales jobs and sales compensation must be addressed for consistency with those requirements regardless of industry.

How Motorola Improved Employee Behavior and Bottom-Line Results With Automated Compensation
Workshop Code: C16F1

The concept behind variable compensation isn't difficult: people are motivated by rewards, and organizations use monetary and other incentives (gift cards, trips, etc.) to shape behavior that improve business performance. Variable compensation pay remains one of the highest cost centers within a company, yet it has the promise to drive business-altering behavior -- if managed correctly. Many companies still struggle under plans that are too complex or simple, don't account for changing business dynamics, and are housed in spreadsheets or disparate systems that cause errors and inefficiencies. For Motorola, the mix of manual spreadsheet-based and disparate automated sales compensation management process was limiting visibility into both sales and rep performance, as well as their ability to make necessary plan changes that could transform sales rep behavior and drive improved business results. Walk through how Motorola transformed its sales organization, rep behavior and improved sales performance by automating the compensation function.

Managing Risk in Incentive Compensation
Workshop Code: C17F1

Compensation committees, senior executives and HR professionals are all being asked to address how their compensation plans lead to risk-taking behavior as they assess and redesign their plans. A panel discussion of leading thinkers on this topic will provide a series of learnings over the past two years working with many organizations on how to ensure sales incentive plans do not drive inappropriate risk. The discussion will focus on a methodology for assessing plan risk, identifying risk scenarios and making plan design or governance changes aimed at mitigating risk. Attendees will receive real-time tools and processes to enable them to assess the degree to which inappropriate risk is being created through the design of incentive compensation plans. Understanding how to address this issue provides an education for all stakeholders responsible for incentive design.

Friday , 10:30 am to 11:45 am

Measurement Manifesto: How to Select Sales Compensation Performance Measures
Workshop Code: C07F2

All effective sales compensation plans begin with the selection of the right performance measures. Done well, the sales compensation plan will have clarity and alignment with business objectives. Improve salesforce performance by using the right types of performance measures. Avoid "cluttering" the sales compensation plan with measures that misdirect sales personnel or weaken the overall effectiveness of the sales compensation plan. Know when to use production, strategic, profit and activity measures. Learn how to help management select the right performance measures. Publish your own performance measurement guidelines at your company. Come to this session to learn the answer to these and other questions: 1) When to use a gross profit versus a price realization. 2) Why you should not use CRM entries as a measure. 3) When you should measure customer churn (loss) and when you should not. 4) How to reach consensus to use three measures or less.

Successfully Managing the Account Management Role
Workshop Code: C10F2

No more hunters! Our research shows that companies are seeking to be closer and more consultative with customers. In other words, building your company's value proposition with the customer. This means you need strong account management skills - a very different profile from hunters, but with significant impact on profitability. In this session, we will discuss how to manage, develop and pay Account Managers, focusing on trends in compensation and organizational structure. This important yet often ignored role is critical to get right. We will share the best methods for accomplishing successful account management.

Company Check Up: How Healthy Are You?
Workshop Code: C18F2

OpenSymmetry's Justin Lane will provide an overview of how a company can self-assess the health of its sales compensation program, specifically focusing on the systems and processes used to administer compensation payments. Through market research and a proven approach, get guidance and data to help you complete this process and understand what you need to reach the next level. Additionally, feedback will be provided on what "best-in-class" companies are doing to transform their programs through process improvement and new technologies.