One of the most challenging tasks in modern distribution management is to create and implement a sales compensation plan that works to the benefit of everyone involved - sales, finance, management and the customer. After all, any incentive to sell must ultimately be in the best interests of the customer as well as the seller, or the distributor is unlikely to be able to build and retain long-term accounts.

Renowned sales consultant and speaker, Dave Kahle of the DaCo Corporation, has created a highly efficient and effective sales compensation development strategy for distributors that pledges to generate results through a "Win/Win" approach. How To Create A Win/Win Sales Compensation Plan offers three 45 minute audio cassette tapes in which Dave explains each of the steps necessary to create an effective program; a set of worksheets and exercises to help solidify and personalize the decisions made along the way; a detailed action plan to guide participants through the process; and a diskette containing spread sheets to use in measuring and evaluating the proposed plans.

The program begins right at square one: why even consider revising a compensation plan? Most distribution executives and sales managers probably wouldn't care to admit it, but the majority of sales compensation plans in today's marketplace are outmoded vestiges of days gone by. Changes in the distribution industry in the last decade have squeezed margins, forced staff reductions and resulted in a reactive, rather than proactive, management mode. Pressure on margins has forced the need for increased sales productivity, more flexible strategies, more efficient sales management and the ability to recruit and retain the best salespeople through effective incentive packages.

Dave's Win/Win Compensation Strategy guides participants through clear, succinct definitions of what constitutes an efficient and effective plan, comparing each to their current compensation plan. Workbooks accompanying the audio tapes help participants to examine their own plans, evaluate their effectiveness and then begin the process of revision.

A critical component of the Win/Win strategy looks at various standard compensation plans and evaluates how each one encourages or discourages certain behaviors. After all, that is what an incentive is all about. Each standard plan - straight salary, straight commission based on sales, straight commission based on gross profit, annual arbitrary bonus and profit sharing - has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some focus on quick sales and short term results; others encourage building relationships, retaining customer accounts long term and teamwork. All have some benefits, but each one is also flawed either in its conception, execution or in the results it produces. The Win/Win plan addresses the flaws in each plan and lays out its own alternative.

Dave Kahle then leads participants through the Win/Win process, starting with a formula that establishes what the base should be, based on sales productivity. The formula analyses sales costs as a percentage of gross profit for the individual salesperson, the sales force and the company and is detailed in a comprehensive appendix to the workbook.

His process then helps identify key corporate goals, objectives and strategies, and reduces those to a set of written statements that everyone understands and on which they have consensus and commitment. Participants then learn how to translate those components into a sales strategy. That sales strategy is then reduced to its essential measurable key performance factors by asking "Is this really what you want your salespeople to do?" Dave recommends that participants define between three and ten key indicators of performance success.

The process also includes interactive sessions in which Dave leads participants through the development of Action Plans that specify each and every action to be taken, who is responsible for that action and a timeline for completion. He then demonstrates how to interview salespeople to fine-tune the strategy and objectives and insure that the right performance activities and behaviors are being measured. The next step is to develop a trial program and, using the spreadsheet program on the diskette, run it and refine it until the results are satisfactory and meet the stated goals and objectives.

The last stages of the process are crucial. In order to be fully effective, implementation must have the full buy-in of the salespeople. Win/Win illustrates how to gain consensus and then, once the decision is made to implement the new plan, to make certain that it is clearly communicated to everyone in the organization.

Dave Kahle recommends that the Win/Win process be monitored for changes in attitudes and behaviors, revised if necessary and repeated every three years as the company's goals, objectives and strategic plans change. So does it work? In the words of one participant, "...sales are up 79%. To go along with that, our cost of sales are down 9.1% and individual margins are up over 1%. In most cases the attitudes are better and the people are eager."

How To Create a Win/Win Sales Compensation Plan is available for only $115 by calling The DaCo Corporation at 800-331-1287, or you can also order online right now.