June 16, 2011

10 great links for Sales Performance Management

WorldatWork has done a great job of putting together the Spotlight on Sales Compensation, a conference focused specifically on helping sales compensation professionals. This year’s conference runs August 24-26th in Chicago.

Survey:  CFO Research Services
http://www.cfo.com/whitepapers/index.cfm/display
CFO Research Services does a great job of understanding the role of Finance and marries that with excellent survey, analytical and writing skills to provide some of the best research available. I sponsored research to better understand what CFOs were thinking about their changing involvement in sales compensation. “Managing Sales Incentive Compensation amid Uncertainty” provides some great data on the changing role and changing perspective of CFOs when it comes to the need to change sales compensation. This is a good read and well executed by Sam Knox and his team.


Ventana Research 2011 SPM Value Index           
http://www.ventanaresearch.com/research/overview.aspx?id=3208
Ventana compiles an authoritative look at the Sales Performance Management Market. The 2011 Value Index provides a comprehensive look at the Sales Performance Management market and vendors.


BetterSalesComp Blog                                       
bettersalescomp.com/blog
Ted Briggs and Clinton Gott share their real-world experiences in sales compensation. They are particularly knowledgeable in High Tech, Financial Services and Medical Devices.


New Sigma Blog  SalesCompInsights                     
https://salescompinsights.com  
Industry veterans Scott Barton posts regularly with valuable insights and opinions. A must read for Sales Compensation professionals. 

CSO Insights - Compensation                                      
http://www.csoinsights.com/topics/Compensation-Territory-Quota
Jim Dickie and Barry Trailer are experts in understanding senior sales executives. Over the years they have gathered fantastic survey data on key trends in improving sales performance. Combined with their personal experiences and insights they are a great resource to understand the keys trends from the Sales perspective. This link leads to some of the great findings on compensation, quotas and territories.


Ann Bares - Compensation Cafe                              
http://compforce.typepad.com/compensation_cafe
Ann writes one of the best blogs on compensation practices. It's broader than sales compensation, but her opinions and posts are very useful for compensation professionals. 

Compensation Analytics                                             
http://www.compensationanalytics.com/resources.html
There are a number of good articles and insights from Mike Chapman on his website. Mike has a long career in Sales Performance Management. He brings lots of experience from being a practitioner with a couple of insurance companies, and also from the consulting side as a Accenture partner. This link takes you to some of the articles he has posted.

Sales Management Association                               
http://salesmanagement.org/
Bob Kelly has put together some impressive resources and experts all focused on helping sales and sales operations leaders. They provide tools and training for individuals who manage, coach or lead sales organizations. There is a membership fee for this site, but Bob does provide a lot of webinars and replays on slideshare.


The Alexander Group                                    
David Cichelli is Alexander Group’s principal thought leader regarding sales effectiveness challenges and solutions facing sales organizations during different stages of growth. He has written two books on Compensating the Sales Force, and speaks a lot of conferences. The Alexander Group blog has some information on driving sales force effectiveness