You can’t continually increase targets to levels that are perceived as unachievable, while putting commission behind a 45% attainment threshold, and expect motivation and performance to remain unchanged. At some point, if the majority of people are effectively working for basic salary, the company shouldn’t be surprised when it gets basic-salary effort.
6 replies (most recent on top)
I think that’s exactly what they’re testing. Dell has figured out how to drive a lot more revenue without adding operating expense at the same rate, so now they’re seeing how far they can push productivity per employee.
The problem is they’re applying that same logic to sales quotas. Instead of looking at whether the underlying market or account opportunity actually grew enough to justify it, they just raise the number and expect the same or fewer people to produce dramatically more.
Eventually you reach a point where it’s not “increased productivity” anymore it’s just unrealistic quota inflation. Then good salespeople miss plan, compensation drops, people leave, and Dell replaces them with someone cheaper. From a spreadsheet it probably looks great. From the sales floor, it’s brutal.
If your paid a salary,do your job
If you look at the results for the last 6 years, especially recently, Dell has been making big revenue without a commensurate leap in operating expenses. Basically, they don't need as many people to make big sales happen. Hence the big leap in second half quotas for sales. They are now REALLY testing it out.
Management starts looking at:
attainment distribution
revenue per head
pipeline per rep
bookings per employee
accounts per employee
AI-assisted productivity
manager-to-employee ratios
low-attainment populations
The question becomes:
“Why do we need X employees to generate this amount of revenue?”
If someone is consistently sitting at, say, 25–40% attainment, Dell can theoretically argue:
“The role isn't generating sufficient productivity.”
They are creating the evidence to validate their next move.
Especially cr-ppy if this happens at times when the company reaps in record revenue and profits and wants people to earn below average sallary.