accidentalsalesguy

Windfall policies?

What's up sales fam! Assuming with the amount of sales experience in this War Room that others have experienced windfall before where commissions are reduced for certain factors.

Recently had this happen to myself and some other teammates after reaching a certain % to quota.

While it was included in the comp guide that a windfall could happen, it is vague and misleading and certainly didn't address the severity of what actually did happen.

I'm curious how often commission windfalls are happening, but for what reasons are you seeing them happen?

Please weigh in with anything and everything you got! Thanks in advance!

💰 Compensation

18 comments

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TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

Damn....so they have a provision where your commission could be reduced but didnt explain EXACTLY what or how it would happen? That is bullshit.

The only thing ive experienced that was close to this was that when I was in financial services I was on 100% commission and during your first year, your commission rate was inflated. so if you sold a certain product, you made 112% commission. In year 2 the same product gave you 96% and year three it was 89%. pretty wild.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

So it's capped? You don't get paid after you hit a certain amount/percentage?

accidentalsalesguy

Executive

It’s been mentioned before that it’s uncapped, but exactly to your point this kind of shit shows that it’s capped. After you hit 250% to your goal, the commission percentage for any sales after that could be reduced to 75%, 50%, 25%, etc. with different tiers deciding that, but even then it’s not a guarantee as it’s subjective to what sales finance decides at the end of the quarter.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

That's an unspoken cap.

So....they're aiming for reps to start sandbagging? Because you know they will.

accidentalsalesguy

Executive

100%! No incentive to push past that.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Yep, another case of rev ops incentivizing the wrong behavior.

accidentalsalesguy

Executive

Yes, exactly. Or even if it would happen. The language is so vague that it leaves it open for them to make that decision at their discretion. To add, there have been previous quarters where a windfall didn’t happen for anyone over 250% or happened at a much higher % to quota with an even higher reduced payout than what’s currently happening. So it’s all very inconsistent and subject to what sales finance decides.

For the role you had where the commission rates changed each year, I bet most people weren’t staying after years 1 and 2.

oldcloser

Arsonist

💀

I’ve never seen this. Does it say in the guide that if a fat deal comes easy and we can prove it, we’ll pay less? I’m sorry, a little luck and a good sales manager are often the difference between top and middle performers. They should pay the same for every deal.

accidentalsalesguy

Executive

Thanks for chiming in. It doesn’t say anything about the types of deals coming in and whether obtained easy or not and the windfall. I’ve heard/read before that windfalls typically are in place for when the sales performance doesn’t match the effort (i.e. big lay up deals or deals that fall into your lap), but never this. This is just in relation to reaching a certain % to your quarterly quota (250% or above) where the company essentially says they reserve the right to reduce payout percentages for anything over that amount.

For context, neither myself or my teammates who this is affecting had fall in your lap type deal situations. In fact, it’s a bit more transactional for us so the deals were spread out in order to reach that percentage.

Space_Ghost20

Valued Contributor

Account Executive

Both banks I worked at had windfall policies. They reserved the right to cap commission payouts at their discretion. There were no hard and fast rules on it.

accidentalsalesguy

Executive

Thanks for sharing! Good to know my company isn’t the only one, but still hate to see windfalls. They certainly don’t incentivize you to keep pushing after a certain point.

Filth

Politicker

Live Filthy or Die Clean

Nothing like incentivizing sandbagging. I do love sandbagging though.

CRAG112

Valued Contributor

Account Executive

Wage theft thinly veiled as a legal way to screw you. Unfortunately, this goes against the very definition of wages and their legal definition.

If you worked for the expectation of X, you are entitled to X.

Companies try to screw people over loose change all the time. You got to fight back. Show up to the next meeting with your lawyer.

detectivegibbles

Politicker

Sales Director

Ehhh seems kinda sketch?

Our company has a cap on some commissions due to risk we take on for certain deals, which I'm on board with.

But to be blindly paid less without rhyme or reason is no bueno.

accidentalsalesguy

Executive

That’s what I’m struggling with the most is what is the real reason this is happening.

CPTAmerica

Opinionated

President/CRO

Happened to Jim Halpert, consult the office for how to deal with it.

Honestly that's a terrible policy. Sales is a meritocracy. Policies like this are dangerous for the health of the org, they only impact the top performers and obviously not for the better.

accidentalsalesguy

Executive

Agreed! Everything is fine and dandy if you’re not crushing it aka not doing as well as your peers who are being impacted.

Maximas

Tycoon

Senior Sales Executive

What Fraudsters,you escalate it to the HR ,if happens again jump the ship,I would even think of suing them if I were you tbh!

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accidentalsalesguy

Windfall policies?

18 comments

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