Before You Touch The Comp Plan
The president of a large industrial company called me a while back. His sales team was underperforming. He’d been sitting with the numbers, turning the problem over, and he’d landed on a theory.
“I think it’s the territory plan,” he said. “And the comp.”
I told him I wasn’t sure that was it.
When a sales team underperforms, comp and territory are almost always the first places leadership looks. They’re tangible. They’re adjustable. And fixing them feels like doing something.
But they’re almost never the actual problem.
What Leaders Look at First
Territory and comp get the blame because they’re visible. A CEO can pull up the structure, find something that looks off, and propose a fix. It creates momentum. There’s a meeting. There’s a decision. Something changes.
The problem goes on.
The harder questions are the ones that require sitting with some uncomfortable information:
Do you have the right person in that seat?
Are they motivated to do this work?
Are they being managed appropriately?
Those questions are harder to answer. So most leaders skip them.
What the President Didn’t Want to Hear
The president wasn’t a bad leader. He was doing what most leaders do. He’d found a narrative that felt actionable. Comp plan needs work. Territories need adjustment. Let’s fix those.
I pushed back, because in my experience, when a rep is underperforming, comp is rarely why. And spending two months redesigning a comp structure around the wrong person doesn’t fix underperformance. It just gives you a more expensive version of the same result.
The real question is simpler and harder: Is this the right person?
The Questions
Before you restructure anything, you need to answer three things about the person in that seat.
Can they actually do the job? Not do they have industry experience or a good resume. Can they have the conversations that move deals forward? Can they handle rejection and keep going? Do they have the instincts the role requires?
Do they want to do the job? Some people are in sales because it pays well. Some because they fell into it. A small number are there because they’re wired for it and they’d do it regardless. That distinction matters more than most leaders realize.
And do they care about what you’re selling? A rep who doesn’t believe in the product isn’t going to fight for a deal when things get hard. They’ll discount, stall, and eventually stop prospecting.
If the answer to any of those is no, fixing the comp plan won’t help. You’re building around the wrong person.
That second question (do they want to do the job?) is where most leaders have the least information. And it’s where the most damage gets done.
What Motivation Actually Looks Like
One of the biggest mistakes sales leaders make is assuming they know what drives their people. They don’t ask. They assume everyone is motivated by what they’re motivated by. Money, equity, advancement.
That assumption costs them.
I’ve worked with founders who offered a sales hire a strong base, upside, and equity. The rep took the job and underperformed. The founder couldn’t understand it. But the rep didn’t value equity. He wasn’t going to be there in five years. He wanted something else entirely, and no one had ever asked him what that was.
Motivation is individual. If you’re managing a sales team and you don’t know what each person on it actually wants, you’re guessing. And when results come up short, you’re going to reach for the comp plan instead of the real answer.
The Book That Starts Here
Talent is the pillar nobody wants to look at. It’s easier to adjust a comp plan than to admit you might have the wrong person in the seat.
I wrote a full chapter on this in The Four Pillars of Your Sales Engine. How to assess whether you actually have the right people. What to do when you don’t. And why no amount of training or comp restructuring fixes a talent problem.
Grab your copy here
Adam
