CSO Insights Blog Posts

"Show me the money!"

We have been busy this month. Last week we released our 2009 Lead Generation Optimization Survey & Analysis Report. The results showed increasing efforts by Marketing organizations to align their goals with the Sales organizations, which is a good thing. For more information on this report, go to our website at this link:

http://www.csoinsights.com/Publications/Shop/Lead-Generation-Optimization

We also launched our 2009 Sales Compensation & Performance Management Survey last week. We initiated this survey last year in response to the number of calls received from research clients about quota setting, territory assignments, and other compensation and incentive management questions.

Just under 300 firms responded to last year's survey. In the first week of this year's survey, over half that number have already responded! We're very excited about this for a few reasons, starting with (yes, one more time) "the downturn in the economy."

We are especially interested to see how/whether the global slowdown has translated in quota and overall revenue plan adjustments. In Q4 '08, 86% of firms expected their 2009 plan number to be higher. One quarter later, two-thirds of firms were reporting their overall lead generation budget was the same or lower. So with times tight, plans are up, budgets are down, sales cycles are taking longer, and buyers are demanding more.

In the words of Dr. Phil we feel compelled to ask, "How's that workin' for you?"

Our 2009 sales compensation survey is a chance to check in mid-year and see. As with each of our survey projects, everyone completing the survey will receive the report at no charge when it's released October 1^st. In addition, our E-Book entitled Sales Management 2.0 is available for download as soon as you complete the 10 minute (or less) survey.

Had enough and ready to take the survey now? Just click here and get started:

CSO Insights' 2009 Sales Compensation & Performance Management Survey

The timing of this survey is deliberate. We're collecting data through Labor Day and the report will be released October 1^st, when many firms will be developing their plans for 2010 while still making every effort to close our Q4 '09 successfully.

The basic premise of last year's report was this: An Organization Elicits the Behaviors It Rewards. It will also be interesting to see how things have shifted, globally and by industry, on specific metrics. For example, one of last year's questions was about the percentage of reps that hit accelerators in their comp plan (see pie chart). It will not be surprising to see a shift in this and many other metrics in this year's data.

We added a few more questions to give a richer picture of what is currently happening in this area of sales management, motivation and compensation. And, as always, we are anxious to see what the data tell us this year and how it can help your decision-making for next year.

We invite you to participate in this project or to let the appropriate person (sales ops, VP Sales, etc) in your organization know about it. For convenience there is also a button linking directly to the survey on the home page of our web site: www.csoinsights.com (the light blue box on in the upper left hand quadrant).

Sell well.

Barry Trailer

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