Gaming the system…

Last week I wrote a little ditty defending salespeople from others who try to seek “attribution” for sales attainment.  To be fair, today I’d like to acknowledge as Michael Dalis said during a BrightTALK webinar, “Salespeople game the system”.  And if you’re wondering… yes; I’m guilty as charged.

When I was “carrying a bag”, on a few occasions over my career I received sales credit; commissions and other recognitions that I did not fully deserve.  When those occasions occurred, I did not speak up and say, “Oh no – I didn’t really earn that.”  Instead, I gamed the system.  Not my proudest moments.

Salespeople are often faced with “moments of choice”.  Being out on the “front lines”, we interact with the marketplace “hand to hand”; many times solo.  There are instances where clients and prospects lie to us; we are regularly accused of returning the favor; and I have been in situations where my company leadership would rather not know how exactly how I closed the deal.  Making payroll is dependent on sales attainment.

To be clear, all are excuses when speaking of ethical behavior.  In the movie, Kingdom of Heaven, it was put this way:

A king or someone with power may move a man.  But the man's soul is the man's responsibility alone.  When facing God, he cannot say, “Others made me do thus; or Virtue was not convenient at the time." 

If the slam, “used car salesman” is actually true even among the most professional of used car salespeople, it begs the question, “What can be done about it?”

Two ideas come to mind (I’m sure there are many more) – sales rep compensation and management observation.

I’d like to address management observation in a separate blog – I have lots to say about that LoL!

Let’s look at sales rep compensation.  I know a common view (primarily among non-sales professionals IMHO) is salespeople’s behavior is driven by compensation.  Never mind that virtually every credible study shows compensation rarely makes the top 10 of what motivates a sales rep, business leaders insist it must. 

And what have these business leaders done?  First, because making payroll is so dependent on sales, they have raised sales reps’ quotas – to unattainable levels.  According to CSO Insights in their research on the “business development” position:

Only 53% of BD people make quota.

Almost half are not making it!  And when a rep doesn’t make quota, their end-of-job destination comes into full view. Our favorite Unknown Sage has said:

    Turns out the light at the end of the tunnel is a        locomotive speeding our way.

How would you respond in that moment of choice, if the odds were stacked against you?  I believe quota performance is a much more powerful driver of rep behavior than merely money.

Perhaps to compensate for the way quota has been set, said management seems to have gamed compensation plans.  According to a study from Optimum Comp Advantage:

Many BD professionals can receive 90-98% of their target total cash while only achieving 70-80% of their quota.

Paying reps to under-perform?  I know companies have to grow, but could it be that management’s decision to game quota and comp plans has influenced reps to engage in gaming too?

I can’t say with total assurance, but if sales reps believed their quota was fair and attainable, perhaps that can be the start of improving their ethical behaviors and decreasing their tendency to game the system.

GAP

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.