Coming soon · Step-by-step Guide
Designing Global Sales Incentive Plans_ Step-By-Step Guide
A practical nine-step (3D6P) methodology for diagnosing sales performance problems and designing globally consistent yet locally flexible sales incentive plans.
This is a step-by-step procedural book — we're building it into Stepcode, with a profile to follow.
What it’s about
Written for Global Rewards Directors tasked with rationalizing hundreds of patchwork sales incentive plans inherited through decades of mergers and acquisitions, this concise, tactical guide lays out a repeatable nine-step 3D6P approach that begins not with pay design but with diagnosing whether incentives are even the true root cause of poor sales. It teaches you to set global design principles that protect the organization from bad practice while permitting local customization on pay levels, pay-mix, weighting, payout frequency, and accelerators. Along the way it covers change management (Force Field Analysis), eligibility via CRI factors, pay positioning via CCESSS factors, tailoring performance measures and quotas to business lifecycle, engineering plan mechanics (thresholds, targets, upside, caps, pay-mix, payout timing), modeling payout scenarios, documenting and communicating the plan, and finally validating plan effectiveness through performance distributions. It is a checklist-driven, example-rich toolkit for compensation professionals who need to translate corporate strategy into globally aligned sales pay.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A Global Rewards or Compensation & Benefits Director asked to consolidate hundreds of patchwork sales incentive plans and align them to corporate strategy.
- The problem
- Dozens or hundreds of inconsistent, region-specific sales incentive plans that don't align to corporate strategy or reliably drive sales. Uncertainty and overwhelm about where to start and whether they have the technical and change-management skills to succeed.
- The plan
- Diagnose the root cause of poor sales across seven organizational dimensions.
- Determine a change management strategy using Force Field Analysis.
- Determine eligibility by mapping roles and applying CRI factors.
- Set pay strategy and positioning using CCESSS factors.
- Select performance measures and set quotas.
- The payoff
- A streamlined portfolio of globally consistent yet locally flexible incentive plans aligned to strategy. · Motivated sales teams with fair, achievable quotas and clear pay-mix logic. · Plans that are well documented, understood, and demonstrably correlated to business performance.
See our guide
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Additional reading
- Human Resource Champions · David Ulrich
The preface references this as a landmark book in the effort to define HR core competencies and the role of HR as a strategic business partner.
- The Human Side of the Enterprise · Douglas McGregor
Mentioned in the preface as a key influence in shifting the perspective from 'personnel administration' to 'human resource management,' providing historical context for the evolution of the HR function.
- The Compensation Handbook, A State-of-the-Art Guide to Compensation and Design · Berger, L.A., and D.R. Berger, editors
This book provides a deep dive into the practical application of finance and accounting; a broader handbook like this one would provide context on the design elements (internal/external equity) that this book deliberately does not cover in detail.
- How to Be a Star at Work: 9 Breakthrough Strategies You Need to Succeed · Robert E. Kelley
Referenced to support the idea that a key trait of high performers is their ability to leverage learning opportunities, which is a core tenet of the book's framework for excelling as a compensation professional.
- Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation · Tyler Cowen
Cited to highlight the increasing economic value of individuals whose skills are complementary to computers, underscoring the book's argument that 'soft skills' and strategic thinking are becoming critical for compensation professionals in a data-driven world.
- Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us · Daniel H. Pink
Cited as a contrasting viewpoint that questions the efficacy of financial incentives, highlighting the importance of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. This is relevant to the book's deep focus on designing effective incentive systems.
- Creative Destruction: Why Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market · Sarah Kaplan and Richard N. Foster
Referenced to illustrate the increasing pace of change and business complexity, which provides the context for why compensation professionals need to be more strategic and business-savvy.
- Beyond HR: The New Science of Human Capital · John W. Boudreau and Peter M. Ramstad
Listed as an additional resource to provide a deeper dive into the strategic management of human capital, which is a central theme of the handbook.
- Pay and organizational effectiveness: A psychological view · Lawler, E. E., III (1971)
This is cited as a foundational text that comprehensively applied psychological theories, particularly expectancy and equity theory, to understand how pay systems affect employee motivation and behavior.
- Economics, organization & management · Milgrom, P., & Roberts, J. (1992)
Serves as a key reference for the 'new economics of personnel,' particularly agency theory. The book uses its concepts to frame decisions about behavior- vs. outcome-based contracts and the challenges of incentive design.