You've built an incentive program that looked right on paper but underperformed.

The question is whether the structure was quietly undermining everything.

THE SCENARIO

It’s the 28th of the month. You’re $600 short of your sales quota. You’ve got one company left in your pipeline that would let you hit the goal. Problem is, they’re not ready to commit and want a couple more weeks to decide. You know you can give them the time and they’ll close as a solid long term client or, if you push, you can get them closed today.

What do you do?

Now imagine instead of the 28th it’s the 3rd of the month.

Does that change your answer?

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What you just felt was incentive gravity. You’re the same person with the same morals but the answer is determined by the pull of the incentive structure, not the character of the rep.

When that client churns in 90 days the explanation will be that the sales rep was overly aggressive and prioritized personal gain over client success.

The structure rarely gets questioned.

The rep does.

WHAT I DO

I run a Plan Stress Test on your compensation structure.

I read your plan the way your sharpest rep would. What they'd prioritize, what they'd ignore, and where the mechanics make certain behaviors optimal.

The deliverable is a clear picture of what your plan is actually buying. Where it holds under pressure, where it bends, and where the path of least resistance leads.

Every constraint in how I work exists to protect the integrity of that read.

WHY IT WORKS

I don’t redesign plans. That’s not an accident

If I pursued redesign contracts, I’d have an incentive to find problems you can hire me to fix. That conflict is structural. The findings are the engagement. There’s nothing to sell you on the other side of the debrief.

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You get the read. Not the sales pitch disguised as one.

I read your documents cold.

No internal presentations, no leadership interviews, no existing explanation for why things are the way they are. Internal narrative contaminates findings. It shapes what a consultant looks for before they’ve looked at anything. I don’t carry it in. A rep doesn’t care what leadership intended when they’re deciding what’s optimal.

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The findings are the reality. Not the story designed to fit what you think you already know.

I don't look at your historical data.

P&Ls and commission reports tell you what already happened. The read tells you what the structure is positioned to produce. Every firm working from historical data is fitting findings to behaviors that already exist. That's not a read. That's a rationalization. The read tells you what the structure is built to produce next.

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The past tells you what happened. The read tells you what's next.

The engagement is a fixed price, all in.

The Plan Stress Test is the complete engagement. There's nothing to consult on, implement, or follow up after the debrief. The price you see is the price you pay, start to finish.

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The debrief is the end of the engagement. Not the start of the next one.

I don’t compare your plan against market benchmarks or competitors.

What your industry does with its incentive structures has no bearing on what your structure is producing. Benchmarking tells you where you stand relative to the field. It tells you nothing about what your architecture is built to do.

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Your structure isn’t average. The read shouldn’t be either.

It's not a months-long engagement. It's five days.

The entire engagement is conducted on documents. No team interviews or need to carve hours out of a busy schedule.

I don’t know if your structure is good or bad. I don’t know if it’s aligned with your risk tolerance or long term strategic goals.

By the end of the week, you will.