You have arrived at the web home of Noah Brier. This is mostly an archive of over a decade of blogging and other writing. You can read more about me or get in touch. If you want more recent writing of mine, most of that is at my BrXnd marketing x AI newsletter and Why Is This Interesting?, a daily email for the intellectually omnivorous.
Our salespeople all estimated that they were spending about 20% of their time just keeping track of what money was due them. There was constant horse trading. And, most worrying, we created a heavy disincentive to do all the service stuff that makes customer service shine. Why would you want a system that sets up after-sales service as competition against new sales, especially if you have a small sales team? Reputation and retention, after all, are both paths to revenue.I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about how you build a structure for teams to succeed. Part of that structure is salary (there are lots of other parts as well). We're trying to figure out a system that makes the most sense for the sort of company we're trying to build and, in turn, trying to look at accepted practices with a skeptical eye. (As an aside, I've also been reading the Management Myth, which explains how management consulting came to be). Anyhow, no real conclusions, but glad to see others thinking about this as well.