Performance Appraisal Interview

For this assignment I spoke with my neighbor who is a sales manager for a company that sales large pieces of equipment to municipalities and general contractors for road construction projects. Due to his position he is responsible for evaluating the effort and effectiveness of his sales people. The questions that were asked were as follows:
What consitutes acceptable performance by your sales people?
How do you pay them? (Commission or salary)
If they don't meet their quota what are the repercussions?
How do you keep them motivated?
Are you succesful in retaining good sales people long term?
The answers I received seemed fairly typical of what most good businesses do to be successful. He described the performance requirements for sales people in his organization as completing a minimum of 100 cold calls per day, scheduling at least 10 appointments per week for his demo rep who is in the field, setting weekly goals and explaining how they will be achieved, and closing at least 2 deals per month. He explained to me that employees are given the option to be paid straight commission at a much higher rate or take a reasonable salary plus a small commission. The salary option is meant to help sales people get trained and comfortable before they go to straight commission, but he told me that most employees never leave the comfort of this option even though they could potentially make much more money on straight commission. Only the best sales people venture into the straight commission and he said they are the ones that show the highest job satisfaction. Each employee has to attend a monthly sales meeting to review their quota. If they ahve fallen short new goals and expectations are set with additional emphasis from the sales manager on meeting weekly goals and then monthly goals. If a sales person goes 3 months without meeting their quota they are put on probation and have 2 months to get back on track or they are let go. He explained to me that in order to keep people motivated and happy with the company so that they will want to stay. Bonuses are handed out each month for those who achieve a higher standard and every year the top 3 sales people all receive an all expense paid trip to places like cabo san lucas or a cruise or something of that nature. For those who are struggling he said he usually tries to work with them on a weekly basis but he will only do this for so long. If an employee can't motivate himself most of the time then he won't cut it as a sales person. He said that he usually knows in the first 2 months if they wil make it but the company policy makes him wait at least 5 months to let the non-productive ones go.