Incentive Compensation in Sales: Aligning People, Performance and Pay

Consistently achieve sales goals with a well-balanced incentive program that rewards high performers. This Best Practices Benchmarking® Slide Report will help you use incentive compensation within the sales force to recognize strong performances, improve employee retention and increase sales.  

Industries Profiled:
Pharmaceutical; Biotech; Health Care


Companies Profiled:
Pfizer; Sanofi-aventis; Merck; GlaxoSmithKline; Novartis; AstraZeneca; Bristol-Myers Squibb; Pharmacia (now Pfizer); Janssen

Study Snapshot

Sales forces seek to incent consistent high performance.  Pharmaceutical sales forces use a sophisticated blend of incentives to drive sales in a fiercely competitive industry.  This report, presented in slide format to encourage readability and fast learning, details the principles behind incentive programs at nine leading companies.

The companies analyzed in this study have  demonstrated the ability to design programs that encourage excellent rep performance.  By creatively recognizing and rewarding their high-performing reps, such companies are able to consistently achieve lofty sales objectives. 

Key Findings

Best Practices, LLC identified and profiled the tactics embedded in these sales forces' winning incentive programs. Survey data and best practices interviews reveal the following key lessons learned:

• Use the right blend of incentives - Sales forces use a blend of financial and non-financial compensation to reward rep performances.  When combined with a financial payout, for example, special assignments and public recognition provide special motivation for rep achievement.
• Understand performance measurement and incentive distribution - Strong incentive programs balance different measures of rep merit.  Employing multivariable incentive programs helps to keep reps motivated and focused.
• Utilize tools such as quotas, product weighting and portfolio kickers- These tools help to drive sales for certain products and communicate sales strategies down to reps.  Portfolio kickers, for example, focus reps on optimizing sales for the entire portfolio. 

If you purchase Best Practice Database document(s), you will have 30 days from the date of purchase to apply some or all of the cost of the document(s) toward the cost of a Full Access Individual, Pharma, Group or University Membership. Write us at [email protected] or call David Guinn at 919-767-9179 if you have any questions.