The problem with enforcement is, it doesn't scale. In Joel's case, Joel and Michael are the ones monitoring the sales department (probably not more than a few guys) and Joel's interests are perfectly aligned with the company, so that's fine. But the second there's a layer of management in between, the Sales Manager (who is also getting paid on commission)has an incentive to let the sales people cheat as much as he is capable of hiding from the higher-ups. So I guess the approach is: use incentives, but only if the sales team has to report directly to people who own equity in the company?
I mean, I guess you could set up a system where you track each sales person's stats to make sure that their customer return vs exit ratio (or some other metric) doesn't fall below company average, and maybe that's what you have to do, but all that is is a better approximation of proper incentives. How much overhead is necessary until you have it right, and how much is that overhead going to cost you?
I mean, I guess you could set up a system where you track each sales person's stats to make sure that their customer return vs exit ratio (or some other metric) doesn't fall below company average, and maybe that's what you have to do, but all that is is a better approximation of proper incentives. How much overhead is necessary until you have it right, and how much is that overhead going to cost you?