For decades, even centuries, the driving objective of sales executives has been to boost revenues. Performance was measured by the number of units their divisions managed to sell or by the dollar volume of sales they generated.

Nowadays, however, those performance metrics are finally vanishing from the business landscape, a process that began more than a decade ago and that the recent U.S. economic recession has accelerated.

"Organizations are coming out of a tough economic cycle, during which they took a much harder look at what they needed to become efficient, at where they make their money and what is driving sales," says Tierney Remick, a managing director at recruiting firm Korn/Ferry International. "Sales executives are having to become much more focused on operational efficiency and accountability."

Ironically, the kind of sales executive most likely to be sought after in this new environment is one who is just as willing to say "no" to a new piece of business as he or she is to pursue it aggressively.

"At some point in the life cycle of the company, someone will stand up and say 'not all business is good business,' and the moment that question is asked, the nature of the sales organization begins to change," says David Cichelli, senior vice president of the Alexander Group, a sales-consulting firm based in Irvine, Calif., whose clients include a number of Fortune 500 corporations.

Michael Bizenov, president of Sterling National Mortgage, a division of New York-based Sterling National Bank, remembers sitting in a meeting of mortgage bankers convened by a state mortgage authority. In the chitchat that preceded the formal meeting, one of his competitors began boasting about a joint venture his firm had just reached with a real-estate firm that would generate $300 million in revenues. Curious, Mr. Bizenov quizzed him on what that meant to the company's bottom line. Eventually, he got enough information to calculate that the $300 million in revenue would translate into only eight basis points (or 0.08 percentage point) in profit. "Did the costs associated with this really make it worthwhile?" he asks, rhetorically. "This guy had never asked. That's the problem: when you assume that sales volume translates automatically into profits." Mr. Bizenov now uses the story as an anecdote in training new sales executives at Sterling's banking and mortgage operations.

Mr. Cichelli argues that the first phase of a company's life depends on its ability to create a low-cost but effective sales organization that can win market share. As it grows, it must be able to scale that organization and replicate it nationally or globally; what Mr. Cichelli refers to as "Stage 2." Then comes the real challenge: "Stage Three," when the rate of sales growth falls below double digits.

"Once you are growing less than 10% a year, you need sales executives who can devise a breakout strategy to help you find new growth opportunities," Mr. Cichelli says. "The head of a sales organization has to make hard choices when cutting prices to compete doesn't work because the market is saturated. You need someone at the helm with the ability to make the switch from high-growth sales to sales with the goal of optimizing profits."

That is the kind of person Howard Korenthal has been seeking for his sales-management team since his investor group bought Connor Sports Flooring Corporation, a maker of flooring materials for gymnasiums and other athletic facilities based in Chicago, about seven years ago. After he became president and chief executive officer of the privately held company, Mr. Korenthal realized the old system, tying compensation to sales volume, wasn't working to generate new sales or boost profits.

"Every year, we set a threshold margin that we are all targeting for all company sales," he explains. Sales executives determine what business they'll pursue -- but they all know that selling lower-margin, nonproprietary products means they will run the risk of falling short of that threshold. Anyone who beats that target gets a bigger bonus; those who fail to will find their compensation suffers.

Shortly after introducing these targets five years ago, Mr. Korenthal began requiring field sales executives to pay their own expenses. "If I was paying for everything, it was going to continue to be difficult to control costs," he says. "If they want to take people to white-tablecloth restaurants in order to win business -- and eat their commissions -- that's fine. But they know that their job is to get as high a margin as possible without losing the sale, and they have a direct financial interest in keeping their costs low."

Such an approach requires companies to share information that previously might have been confined to top executives, so that all managers understand the trade-off between market share and profit margins. And sales executives with a finance background, or with exposure to other company operations, are often best positioned to operate under such a strategy.

"Increasingly, we're seeing top sales executives with M.B.A. degrees, something that didn't used to exist," says Ms. Remick. "They are being brought in to help instill a much more centralized and strategically focused approach on the part of the sales organization." Companies also are upgrading training programs to prepare more junior sales executives for the more complex role. She notes that the Frito-Lay snack-food division of PepsiCo Inc. moves sales executives through multiple executive functions, while parts of Procter & Gamble's organization has taken similar steps. "The goal is to seek out naturally financially astute sales executives, and ensure that the incentives in place reward this kind of approach to sales," she adds.

Jim Walker, president and chief executive of Octagon Research Solutions, a closely held biotech-consulting firm founded in 1999, recently finished expanding the ranks of his sales team. The idea would be not just to expand sales but also to ensure that the new business that's generated is the right kind of business for Octagon, a 95-employee company with more than $10 million in revenues.

"We stumbled a few times, hiring the wrong people who just focused on sales volume," he says. "Now, when we start interviewing for openings, we'll ask questions upfront that we hope will get them thinking about ways to ensure that the accounts they win for us would meet our business needs."

Such individuals are hard to find, Mr. Walker adds. "Increasingly, they may be sales people, but they have a background in business development." Michael Pinto, Octagon's new vice president of sales, left a job selling contract software where his tasks had ranged from general manager to business development and sales. Already he has revamped the way Octagon measures the performance of its sales force. "We used to judge people by the number of calls they handled each week; now it's about quantity and how well that potential client fits into our strategic plan," Mr. Walker says.

Even figuring out how many new sales representatives to recruit can be a more complex decision under this new approach to sales. "We have a branch that needs to expand its sales force, but they must hire either one person or three people, not two," says Mr. Bizenov. Two would add too much overhead but not generate enough additional business to justify it.

Mr. Bizenov is focusing intently on hiring sales executives who can think creatively. "The mortgage industry has been spoiled by this refinancing boom," he says. "Until six months ago, volume was king, but now that is changing. If I hear a candidate for a sales-executive position talk about boosting volume and not mention margins or profitability, it raises a big red flag for me."

Bill Kuntz, managing partner of MRI/Princeton Search Group's Indianapolis division, says sales-executive compensation is likely to be tied explicitly not just to the number of new accounts or quantity of goods sold, but to a broader range of objectives. "Performance now is going to become a function of market share, of the profitability of new accounts, of profit margins on the goods sold, on the success in opening new markets or selling new products," he says.

Traditionally, while compensation for sales representatives has been heavily weighted to bonuses and commissions, sales executives have received as little as 10% of their annual compensation in the form of a bonus, Mr. Kuntz says. That's changing, too. Now, he says, 25% of compensation in the form of a bonus isn't unusual as companies try to make their top sales executives more responsive to the overall corporate strategy.