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Why Good Salespeople Behave Badly

September 14, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Sales Leaders' Roundtable

The conventional wisdom is that all sales people are driven to earn as much as possible, and that the opportunity to earn more is a key driver of their performance. Learn more

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Where:
Gleacher Center
Room 100
450 North Cityfront Plaza Drive
Chicago, IL

Program:
6:00 - 6:30 pm: Registration & Networking
6:30 - 8:00 pm: Presentation
8:00 - 9:00 pm: Cash Bar reception in the Midway Club

Who:
John M. Jack
Senior Vice President, Innovative Resources
BI, The Business Improvement Company

Cost:
No Charge

Registration:
Register Online
Please register by 9/14/2005

Directions & Parking:
A map of the area, including parking facilities, is available online. The 201 East Illinois lot offers a special UC rate with validation. Have your parking ticket stamped at the service window on the first floor of Gleacher Center.

Questions:
Ken Nordine, '97 (XP-66)
312-546-4522

Event Details
Those who manage sales organizations face a number of common challenges, usually without regard to the nature of their business. One of them, perhaps the most common of all, is generally referred to as 'moving the middle.' This refers to those in a sales force whose performance is somewhere between unacceptable and exceptional. These are individuals who have the potential to perform at a high level, but for whatever reason, regularly accomplish only middling results. Unlike the top achievers, they are less motivated by fame or fortune. They have the potential to do better, but lack the driving ambition to excel.

The conventional wisdom is that all sales people are driven to earn as much as possible, and that the opportunity to earn more is a key driver of their performance. Yet, when we look at any sales organization'even those paid purely on a commissioned basis'we see that a small percentage of the sales people nearly always produce the larger share of the sales. It's what is referred to as The Pareto Principle, or the 'eighty-twenty rule.' This explains why 'moving the middle' is such an interesting topic among sales managers.

Jack's presentation will explain why conventional sales-compensation systems often fail to 'move the middle,' and will suggest some novel approaches that have helped hundreds of companies address this issue.

Key Topics:

  • How do salespeople align personal goals to achieve corporate objectives?
  • What key principles can be employed to influence people's choices?
  • What results from specific research show about motivation.
  • Why do people who set their own goals achieve more than those who don't?

Speaker Profiles:

John M. Jack
Senior Vice President, Innovative Resources, BI, The Business Improvement Company

John M. Jack is Senior Vice President of Innovative Resources at BI. His research and innovative methodologies have led to the development of several groundbreaking reward systems that are used extensively by hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies. He has been published in nationally recognized magazines. Most recently he was recognized as one of the TOP 100 Innovators in American business.

Jack is widely known for his research into behavioral responses to compensation and various types of contingency-based rewards. His work. 'The Trouble with Money' stands alone as the leading piece on the impact of awards. BI is a leading provider of performance improvement services that specializes in Communications, Training, Reward Systems, and Performance Measurement Analytics. Their organization has earned the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige Award for service quality, and has been recognized as Supplier Of The Year by corporations as diverse as Sears, Ford Motor Company and Verizon Information Services. www.biworldwide.com


Sales Leaders' Roundtable
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