Case Study

Strategic Compensation Plan Redesign

A PE-backed marketing technology company redesigned its sales compensation structure to align incentives with strategic priorities, differentiate new business from expansion, and motivate top performers through transparent modeling and cross-functional collaboration.

22 reps

Buy-in achieved across team

2 segments

Enterprise & Commercial plans

3 months

Project timeline

1.2x quota

Accelerator threshold

The Challenge

A PE-backed marketing technology company's existing compensation structure created misaligned incentives and team friction.

Compensation plan didn't adequately differentiate between new business acquisition and existing customer expansion.
Sales reps lacked clear incentive to prioritize new logo acquisition vs. easier upsells.
Some reps felt the plan was unfair or confusing, creating morale issues.
Plan didn't reward stretch performance or create meaningful accelerators for overachievement.
Needed to balance base performance expectations with aggressive growth goals.
Required buy-in from 22 reps across Enterprise and Commercial segments.

Our Solution

Strategic Compensation Redesign (timeline: 3 months).

Cross-Functional Partnership: Collaborated with Revenue Operations and Finance teams to model multiple compensation scenarios.
Differentiated Components: Separated New Business and Existing Business into distinct plan components with different commission rates and accelerators.
Threshold & Accelerators: Implemented minimum quota thresholds to ensure baseline performance while adding aggressive accelerators for overachievement (1.2x+ quota).
Individual Modeling: Conducted rep-by-rep financial modeling to ensure fair treatment while maintaining performance expectations.
Clear Documentation: Created comprehensive plan documents with examples, FAQs, and quota/OTE breakdowns for each role.
Executive Presentation: Presented final plans to executive leadership for approval before rollout.

Results & Impact

Achieved sales team buy-in on new compensation structure through transparent communication and fair modeling.
New business component created stronger incentive for new logo acquisition vs. expansion-only strategies.
Overachievement accelerators motivated top performers to pursue stretch goals beyond base quota.
Clear plan documentation reduced compensation-related questions and disputes.
Individual quotas ranged from $1.25M-$1.35M (Enterprise) and $400K-$700K (Commercial) with aligned OTE structures.
Plan design became template for future fiscal years with minor refinements.

Client Feedback

"Compensation redesign is one of the trickiest projects in sales leadership. You need to balance company growth priorities, individual fairness, and team morale. By partnering with RevOps and Finance and doing individual rep modeling, we created a plan that drove the right behaviors while maintaining trust with the team."

— Head of Sales, PE-backed MarTech Company