SDR,
I always appreciate the insight of my elders.
We have a strict ranking and rating system which somewhat separates the quota achievement from the assessment of your ablities by mgt. The type of sales mgt you describe is common at hardware OEMs like Cisco, Juniper, MOT etc. Also software firms. I am extremely lucky that I work in a corporate culture that is the primary case study for a portion of Stanford’s MBA curriculum. Our past CEO was a TIME magazine man of the year.
Besides, only 35% of my compensation is variable, and its what we call a “managed” pay plan. That means no one gets to excced the threshold by too much, ususally accomplished through mid-year quota raising. If that happens, it is recognized as a good thing and you a rewarded with cash/stock etc at review time that more than makes up for any lost comissions from the higher quota.
As a high tech sales guy, I am very fortunate to work in the sales group that I do, because your description of the perils/risk is indicative of the norm.
We have a formal program to develop the “young” studs. Let me tell you, due to the complex nature of what we do, it is not only really tought to find enough qualified candidates at top schools to fill out the program every year, and then it takes them years on average to thrive in a quota-driven position. I wish we had more of them.
But back to RE, I saw figures this morning in the LA Times that I’d like to get your perspectives on:
*******
The median in San Diego, which has been viewed as a barometer of market trends because it was the first county to accelerate and the first to slow, rose 5.7% to $504,000 although sales fell 17.4%. Prices there have declined 2% in the last six months.
*******
