Growth Insights for CEOs

Outsider Insights | The Comp Plan Is Quietly Telling Your Sales Team Not to Hunt
Executive Takeaways
- Sales reps focus on what they're paid and measured on, even if that strays from business strategy and goals.
- Many compensation plans and account structures quietly reward protecting revenue, not creating it.
- Adding a quota target without changing the underlying structure just adds pressure, not pipeline.
- Fixing this starts with the comp plan and account map, not a pep talk about hustle.
Outsider Insights
Across Chief Outsiders, we talk to hundreds of CEOs every month. In this series, we explore the trends and challenges we’re hearing from these discussions – and what you can do if you’re facing the same issues in your business.
Recent Posts

Maximizing Your Position In Your Market
Mon, Sep 26, 2011 — Every company must develop a strategic direction that best fits its capabilities and its standing in its marketplace. Most business categories fall into similar market share patterns. There are three major players who, combined, have roughly 70-90% of the market. Then you have a group of small savvy specialists that have identified an underserved audience within the market. These tend to be businesses that succeed based on lower volumes, by definition, but much higher margins. In general, they tend to have no more than 5% of the market each. And, finally, you have the remaining companies in the category that live on the crumbs that are left over.