2022 Pay Practices and Trends Survey Readout:
Key Findings

Michelle Seger
So Mark, it was tough for us to pick out the big findings here and we distilled it down to six hybrid sales roles.

Michelle Seger
They continue to be the fastest growing role in sales today. We started to see that during the pandemic and it’s very important to say how we define the hybrid sales role. So this isn’t a working hybrid, right? So this isn’t a hybrid workforce question like I’m working in an office and working from home, but this is how am I interfacing with my clients, my buyers, my customers?

Michelle Seger
So it means that they’re spending roughly half of their time face to face and half of their time working, connecting with their customers in a virtual or remote fashion, regardless of where that takes place. So that’s how we define hybrid. And it was really a shift from field sales role, brick and mortar. And there was just something that I saw online today by one of our clients actually a big advertising company around brick and mortar returning in a huge way.

Michelle Seger
And they were posing the question on what do you prefer or do you prefer the in-store or shopping experience or ecommerce? Because they talked about Mark, the growth in brick and mortar and brick and mortar sales were up. I think it was like 18.7%.

Mark Donnolo
You know, people are back out in the stores. You know.

Michelle Seger
They’re in the stores and they talk about e-commerce, too, right. It was like up 14 and a half percent, something like that. So we’re going to talk about that. We’re going to talk about omnichannel finding and retaining talent. It remains a big challenge for sales organizations. And then three other things that we found true to all of you and incentive compensation.

Michelle Seger
One, revenue, it’s growing in usage. So it was bookings was always the strongest one for that new acquisition. And we’re going to talk to you about the role that revenue has been playing and then profit, how that’s been gaining adoption in pay plans and as a service continues off as a priority, although we know that it has been fraught with some may be economically driven, we’re not sure issues in in getting there.

Mark Donnolo
Yeah I think as a service I mean that’s been the trend, right? That’s where everything is going in terms of moving off of selling the one time license or the on premise thing to the as a service. Interestingly, and we’ll kind of color some of these comments today about what’s happening recently the as a service the SAS companies particularly in software are feeling the brunt of some of the recent economic pressure because of the variable nature of what they’re buying.

Mark Donnolo
Right. So in a couple of ways, you can you can use less if you need to. So you haven’t committed to that huge license or depending on your contract terms. And then if you if you’re laying people off and you don’t have as many people, well, you’re not going to have as many as a service seats. Right.

Mark Donnolo
And we haven’t heard as much about sales organization layoffs more as much as general layoffs. But certainly that can have an impact on the as a service segment.

Michelle Seger
Yeah, you’re exactly right. And what we’ve been hearing, some companies are even questioning, should we be pushing it as much? And, you know, and salespeople are saying, what I just be making more of, I sold that one time upfront, you know, cash, right. That that one with that upfront deal.

Mark Donnolo
Yeah so you know I see this point from Regina on on the the note here now there’s going to be a fee for returning clothes. They’ll drive people to go back to brick and mortar shopping. You know, that’s a really good point. I’ve heard some of that as well. Like I was at Stitch Fix or somebody $3.50 cent fee or maybe that was the wrong company.

Mark Donnolo
But it’s like $3.50 to return something. So it kind of, you know, diminishes that a little bit in terms of certain people I know that did buy massive amounts and they plan to return, you know, two thirds of it. Well, there’s going to be a little bit of a penalty for that. So so that’s been used. That whole free return thing’s been used for a while to really try to drive online.

Mark Donnolo
And, you know, people have really picked up during the pandemic, but there’s going to be a cost to that with some companies at least.

Michelle Seger
Well, let me tell you something. I’ll let you in on a secret. So I actually put this on my post this morning on LinkedIn. Mark and I talked about that. I bought a pair of jeans in a in a store, a little boutique, independently owned store in Nashville. But I found out about this new brand of clothing that’s made in America.

Michelle Seger
I happen to like made in America, clothing I, I seek out made in American stuff anyway. So I bought a pair of jeans from them online and I’m like, Are you kidding me? They didn’t fit. But, you know, same size, whatever. Ten bucks to return them.

Mark Donnolo
No way.

Michelle Seger
So now I’m like debating. Okay, is it going to be what’s the cost differential if I have them? You know, if I haven’t taken it a little bit, yeah. Just haven’t altered versus return them. So I’m going to find that out and I got ten days.

Michelle Seger
If I do return within ten days, got to keep up. So yeah, things are changing.

Mark Donnolo
Yep. I had the same thing happen with some boots I just bought. They were they were huge. Luckily I was able to return to the place. Got it back to me. They sent them back even before they got the return back. So, so look like then, then the smaller size I got, they were to tighten. I’m like, I can’t return these them somewhere in the smaller size.

Mark Donnolo
So I’ll get used to it.

Michelle Seger
So that's why you look pinched in the face. You're walking around like this. Anyways.