In a BLR webinar entitled ‘Commission Pay Plans: How to Motivate Your Sales Staff in a Roller Coaster Economy’, David Wudyka discusses the possibility of harnessing the power of sales managers within an organization. He states that the job of the sales manager is to help the sales representatives succeed. This is also connected to contingency-based leadership from a management perspective. Others can be made successful by removing roadblocks and showing others the way. More information regarding harnessing the power of managers includes the following:

• The best sales managers are managers first and sales representatives second. Their job is to help their sales representatives succeed at their jobs, not try to maintain ‘big dog’ status as sales reps themselves
• The more time you can spend hiring, coaching, and aligning your sales managers with your company's goals, the greater the results you'll see
• Everyone loses if your sales managers ‘bad mouth’ your CPP or any proposed CPP changes. They must remember to send negative comments up the chain to you, while sending positive reinforcement down the chain

David Wudyka, SPHR, MBA, BSIE, is the founder and managing principal of Westminster Associates (www.westminsterassociates.com), a Massachusetts-based human resource and compensation firm that specializes in pay, performance, and productivity issues. He brings more than 30 years of professional HR and compensation experience to the table for clients around the country. He speaks and writes frequently on HR and compensation issues, and he earned his master’s degree from Syracuse University.