Comda Calendars

Comda Calendars sells almost 50 million promotional calendars each year to companies throughout North America and the UK. About half of the company's calendar sales are made through its outbound sales call centre, amounting to about 50,000 orders per year ranging from 150 up to 30,000 calendars.

Comda had struggled for years with inadequate performance in generating new accounts in its sales room, which was leading to growth below expectations. Morale and sales rep income were low, resulting in turnover. There were numerous areas identified with the Comda team for improvement, from organization to compensation.

• A "Beta Team" of a small number of staff was selected to test ideas ahead of full implementation
• Redesigned a sales compensation system to better align incentives with company objectives and sales rep psychological factors, without increasing cost
• Created a detailed goal-setting system to set income/sales "stretch" goals connected to activity for each individual staff member
• Better balanced the organizational structure to provide more and better support for sales people and managers
• Built manuals for both sales managers and sales people to train new people and store best practices
• Improved focus and leadership at the VP Sales level

First six months of 2006 compared to first six months of 2005:

• Morale is up significantly, with many staff commenting on how much happier they are to be there
• Overall calling activity is up 22%
• New accounts sold per sales rep increased by 25%
• Turnover is down 20%, saving recruiting, training and ramp-up costs estimated at $5,000 per staff member
• Sales managers are taking ownership over results
• Accountability and tools together are leading to continuous improvement in the numbers posted by the telesales team