HBS Working Knowledge writes:
The process of transforming top management’s goals into concrete sales typically breaks down for one or more of the following reasons:
– Lack of top management clarity about objectives.
– Difficulty translating objectives into an operational business plan.
– Vagueness communicating objectives and business plan to the sales force.
– Failure to align compensation with the objectives.
– Problematic individual sales plans and managerial coaching.In order to reconnect sales management to profitability, address each of the points of breakdown. Managers can do this through a five-step process:
– Understand profitability.
– Translate into business objectives.
– Communicate the business objectives.
– Translate into a compensation plan.
– Create individual sales plans.
