Tom Brennan wrote: >LOL - As a tech person, I'll never fully understand why it makes such a >big difference to sales folks that a machine is purchased by say, June >30, and the old z13 has to be back at IBM 60 days later. But I don't >have to live with them :) :)
Well, they may not get full credit until the old machine is returned (though I can't quite imagine why THAT would be), and they want to make quota lest they be dismissed, so there's that. Also, quota is often on a rolling basis, with, say, percentages for this month based on the last THREE months. So if you sell: $1M $1M $1M .that third month will be a higher percentage than if you sell: $0 $0 $3M And since in the $1M/$1M/$1M scenario, month 2 might have ramped some as well, that scenario is much better for the rep. Of course this backfires-the rep who can see that they're looking at a few good months coming up after a dry spell may be incentivized to slow-path a sale, so that rather than: $0 $0 $1M $0 $2M $3M .they have $0 $0 $0 $1M $2M $3M Other spiffs may come into play to help control that, or it may just be a "*shrug*, not worth trying to fix". (Yes, this is wildly OT, but at least it's algorithmic and not political, so maybe interesting to geeks! I know I always found it interesting. Of course, as her husband, it had some real-world effects on my [our] bank account.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
