A Harvard Business Review article entitled, “How Salespeople Game the System” provided some wisdom on developing incentive and compensation programs for salespeople. Although incentive compensation plans can bear a lot of fruit, these researchers concluded that salespeople will try to find ways to game the system to increase their compensation.
These researchers discovered eight common schemes that salespeople use to manipulate the system. Inappropriately timing a sale to get a bigger incentive, or misleading customers, are two common ways.
1 Corinthians 9:10 says, “He who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes should thresh in hope of sharing the crop.”
When developing any sales compensation plan, be generous to share the harvest, but give thought to ways the system could be manipulated. Then adjust the plan accordingly.
