Fuentes Friday Edition #0057

The quarter ended on Monday, and my calendar this week has been flooded with planning calls with AEs. What is surprising is that many of the AEs already were off to incredible starts for Q2. Yes, many of the AEs I met with are Hall of Famers or likely to be inducted one day, but those already killing Q2 had something else in common… sandbagging. 

Intentionally, many of them held deals and did not close them in March but instead closed them on April 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Why? Because for ALL of them, holding the deals for the start of the new quarter was more beneficial than closing them in Q1. Huh? How? 

Well, for some, there was no incentive for surpassing quota. Thus, once they had hit quota, they started making judgment calls on when they should close their other deals. The singles (small ones) they got off their plate. The triples and home runs they held so that they could start Q2 with a bang. This practice is dangerous as anything can happen, but for them, the risk was not outweighed by the reward (an easier Q2). 

For others, they had maxed out all of their accelerators, so closing another deal did not increase additional incentives. Sure, they would earn a higher commission on that deal, but holding on to it meant that they would be setting themselves up for accelerators in Q2. 

The most egregious example for both the AE and the company was the one that had already hit over 300% to quota, had maxed everything out, and was told that his commission was capped for the quarter. So, for 10 days, TEN DAYS, he softly managed his next big deal, which was worth 40% of his number for Q2. He legitimately put a massive deal at risk because he had no real incentive to close it. Lucky for him, nothing crazy happened (I once sandbagged a deal only to have the champion die before the start of a new month), and he got the deal across at 9:01 AM on Tuesday, April 1st. 

When I asked him what type of pressure his leadership had put on him to close the deal, his answer surprised me. He said none. He doesn’t think that his sales leader knew. He said he was meeting with the prospect and reported that in pipeline meetings, and this satisfied his manager. I am also sure that the manager, knowing that this particular AE is GOOD, didn’t really dig deep into this deal. 

Uggg, I cannot believe that all of these AEs introduced so much risk into their deals! But I get it. When your comp plans are not aligned with the actions you want your team to take, you will get actions like the ones above. Are your comp plans aligned? Are you aware of all the deals? Are you creating incentives to prevent sandbagging? Not sure? Reach out, and let’s chat.