Start an honest discussion between the CFO and Senior Sales Management about your pay practices. The effectiveness of an incentive plan is ONLY determined by its ability to help you achieve your business objectives. If your objectives have changed over the last few years, how has this been reflected in your incentive practices?  For example, consider that all dollars of gross profit are not created equally.

Labor costs are one of the biggest expense items a company deals with. When expenses are under scrutiny, many companies look at the significant cost associated with their sales efforts, and rightly so. However, there are many mistakes that companies repeatedly make. This article looks at the biggest errors we've seen companies make in their outside sales compensation programs, the "don'ts," as well as the activities that companies should undertake, the "do's."