Insights
Your Comp Plan Is Already Telling Reps What to Do. Is It Saying What You Meant?
Before calling something an accountability problem, look at the economics from the rep's side. Your compensation plan may already be driving the behavior you keep asking against.
By Kevin Brown ·
Your comp plan is already telling reps what to do. Is it saying what you meant?
You tell the team to protect margin, but commission is based entirely on revenue. A discounted deal gets a rep closer to quota, even when it leaves the business with less profit.
You want new customers, but growing an established account pays the same and takes half the effort.
You want reps developing a new market, but their income depends on what closes this quarter. The longer sales cycle becomes a personal financial risk.
Those are strategic decisions embedded in the compensation plan, whether leadership made them deliberately or not.
Before calling something an accountability problem, I think leaders need to look at the economics from the rep's side. What is the most rational way to earn a living under the plan we gave them?
That question can explain a lot of behavior that otherwise looks like resistance.
A useful exercise: take your three biggest sales priorities and walk through how a rep gets paid for advancing each one. Include the time, effort, and risk involved. Then compare that with what they could earn by spending that time somewhere else.
You may find that the behavior you keep asking for requires reps to work against their own financial interests.
If a rep followed your comp plan exactly as written, would you get the sales organization you're trying to build?