Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Poorly structured stretch goals incentivize sales teams to manipulate deal timing

Karina Belizzi · She Aimed Past the Target and 100x'd a Company in 10 Years · Oct 12, 2021 · at 38:24

Karina Belizzi, former sales leader at Nordic Naturals, discusses the perverse incentives and deal-timing distortions created by poorly designed sales bonus tiers.

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“I think that instilling something like that with the wrong person in charge could lead you to pull sales into one year out of the other, or if you were so far off from reaching that goal, you might push it into the future year. So I think from a compensation perspective, those in the executive seats need to be wise about how they incentivize their sales teams. I have known my brokers when I gave specific goals and stretch goals to kind of keep sales in back pocket and Push them into the next month if it was going to mean that they'd reach the objective more easily in the next month if they were a little too far from goal this month.”

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