James Alexander Consulting LLC
Compensation Advisory Services
"Yeah, fugazi, fogazi. It’s a wazi, it’s a woozi. It’s fairy dust. It doesn’t exist, it’s never landed, it is no matter, it’s not on the elemental charge" It may seem like fugazi but Compensation Cost of Sales (CCOS) could be the difference between sales plan success and failure. In simple terms, CCOS is the... Continue Reading →
This is an interesting question, and does require some thought. To which level of role should geo-differentials be applied? To start with, what is a geographic differential? Well, typically when creating salary ranges, or benchmarks, rather than creating a midpoint for every position/level in every city in a given country, we will group cities and... Continue Reading →
In my experience, companies tend to struggle with managing sales programs in Europe far more than they do in North America. There is certainly no simple answer as to how to build a European sales team but acknowledging the challenges and understanding the variables will certainly make the process more straightforward. I've attempted to categorize... Continue Reading →
There are all kinds of reasons to generate benchmark data. It might be for a specific job that you are struggling to hire for, it may be for a new region or country where there are no structures in place, or for a hiring manager that wants to look more closely at a particular position.... Continue Reading →
Market data is great - I love it, you love it, everyone loves it. We love it because it informs us about the market and allows us to be more confident in making decisions. Problems with market data arise from over-reliance where it shifts from informing decisions, to making them. If we have 50th percentile... Continue Reading →
Actually, no, let's not call the whole thing off, let's clear this up once and for all. Many people capitalize spiffs claiming it to be an acronym for "Special Purpose Incentive for Field Force" or any one of several possible acronyms. Let's be clear - it does not stand for ANYTHING. At best it is... Continue Reading →
This is exactly what Jacob Gonik set out to achieve for IBM Brazil in the 1970s. The starting point is that if we want an effective sales plan, there needs to be some notion of expectation in the form of a goal or quota. The challenge, as most of us know, is knowing what that... Continue Reading →
I hear this usage a lot, "Maybe we can give them an MBO" or "I'd like to include MBOs in the plan". However, this doesn't really make sense so permit me a short rant if you will. MBO stands for "Management By Objectives" which means it isn't a measure, it is a process. The approach... Continue Reading →
These two approaches are both job leveling frameworks that can be used independently or can also work together in tandem. Job evaluation uses a codified approach to assign points to a role based on its relative worth in an organization which in turn can be aligned to a salary structure. Examples include Hay Grades or... Continue Reading →
The debate around the use of thresholds is perennial and it's fair to say that it's one of the areas of sales comp where common practice varies a fair amount. The argument in favor of a threshold goes something like this - "why would I pay a salesperson to underachieve? We'll create a minimum level... Continue Reading →