How to Design Compensation Plans That Drive Real Revenue Growth

Featuring Bryant Krieger, Founder of Optimize | Growth Department Podcast, Episode 11

Compensation plans can be one of the most effective growth levers in your business if you build them right. Unfortunately, most companies treat them like a final step instead of a core component of the strategy.

In this episode of the Growth Department, Chelsey Reynolds sits down with RevOps expert and Optimi5e founder Bryant Krieger to break down what it takes to design incentive structures that actually move the needle. This article can give you insights and ideas for if you want your sales team to sell smarter, faster, and in alignment with your goals.

Start With Strategy, Not Scrambling

Too many teams get their annual goals and budgets locked in before they ever start thinking about comp. That’s a costly miss.

Bryant has seen it happen over and over: leadership sets the vision, and only afterward do they ask, “So how should we pay people for this?”

By that point, it’s too late to build true alignment. The incentive structure ends up rewarding behaviors that feel productive but steer the business off course — like chasing volume when retention is the actual priority.

Strong comp planning starts early. If you're building your roadmap for next year, you should already be asking: how are we going to pay people to do the right things?

Simple Compensation Plans Perform Better

It’s tempting to try and cover every scenario, every role, every stakeholder with a complex, detailed plan. But that’s usually a mistake.

Bryant puts it plainly:

If your reps can’t figure out what they’ll earn from a deal in under a minute, the plan isn’t working. Complexity slows decisions, erodes trust, and kills momentum. Reps lose motivation fast when they’re confused about their own compensation.

By contrast, simple plans create clarity. They focus your team, make coaching easier, and scale more cleanly as the company grows. If your comp model can’t be explained on a whiteboard in three steps or less, it’s time to trim.

Match Incentives to Outcomes

Once a comp plan is clean and easy to understand, the next step is making sure it rewards the right behaviors. This is where most plans fall apart.

Bryant shared examples of companies that incentivized new logo acquisition even when those customers weren’t a fit. Sales hit their numbers, but the business paid the price in churn, broken processes, and a burned-out CS team.

Sales reps will always take the most efficient path to a commission. That’s not a flaw in their character. That’s the sign of a smart operator. Your job is to make sure that path leads to the outcomes your business actually wants.

RevOps plays a central role in making this happen. As the connection point between sales, marketing, finance, and product, RevOps helps ensure comp plans reflect the company’s true priorities.

Treat Comp Data Like a Coaching Tool

Once your plan is live, it becomes a living feedback loop. If you use it well, it won’t just tell you who earned what. It’ll tell you what’s working, what’s broken, and what to improve.

Bryant encourages leaders to regularly review comp data through a coaching lens. If one rep is outperforming and another is dragging, the plan can offer clues. Maybe it’s an activity gap. Maybe it’s territory design. Maybe one person simply needs better enablement.

Compensation trends give you patterns to work from. They help managers shift from guesswork to data-informed decisions. And over time, those insights compound.

Understand What Actually Motivates People

Money is important. But it’s rarely the whole picture.

Salespeople are human beings. Some are motivated by hitting the leaderboard. Others want PTO, recognition, or even something as simple as a dinner gift card. Bryant has seen reps work harder for a $25 treat than they would for an extra $100 in cash.

The takeaway here is simple: motivation is personal. And while you can’t build a one-size-fits-all plan, you can sprinkle in contests, spiffs, and creative rewards that speak to what drives your team.

Think about short bursts of energy: a team challenge, a public shoutout, or a prize they’d never buy for themselves. These small tweaks can bring a plan to life and reinforce the behavior your core model is designed to encourage.

A Year When the Plan Worked ... Really Worked

To bring this theory to life, Bryant shared a story from his time leading comp strategy at a fast-scaling logistics tech company.

In that year, revenue goals were ambitious. The team aimed for 30 to 35 percent growth. From the beginning, leadership treated compensation as part of the plan, not an add-on. Every growth initiative included a comp component. Reps knew what to expect.

Leadership had clear visibility. The results? They crushed their goals and grew by nearly 50 percent.

Even when macro conditions shifted the following year, the plan held steady because it was already built for alignment. That stability paid off.

Navigating Big Changes

If you’re moving from a full-cycle sales model to a segmented structure, be ready for some friction. Especially if you’ve got legacy reps who’ve grown comfortable earning commissions from accounts they closed years ago.

Bryant’s advice is straightforward: be honest, be mathematical, and be human.

Start by showing reps what they earned last year and how they can exceed that in the new model. Let the numbers lead the conversation. Some reps will want to hunt. Others will want to farm. You don’t need to guess; have candid conversations with your team and figure out where their strengths and desires line up with what your company is looking to accomplish.

With transparency and trust, most teams can handle change. But only if they understand what’s in it for them.

Do You Need Fancy Software?

Not necessarily.

Bryant made it clear: you can build a high-performing comp plan in Excel. The key is clarity, not tooling.

Technology can be helpful, especially at scale. Tools can automate payouts, reduce errors, and give reps visibility into their earnings. But they don’t fix broken plans. A tool amplifies what’s already there, for better or worse.

If your plan works on paper, it’ll scale with software.

If it doesn’t, no platform will save you.

What the Best Comp Plans Have in Common

To wrap it all up, Bryant shared three core principles for building a comp plan that fuels real growth.

Here are some of the table stakes concepts: 1. Start earlyInvolve comp planning in your strategic process from the beginning. It’s easier to align behavior when you’re not rushing to hit a deadline.

2. Keep it simpleLimit your plan to three components or fewer. Simplicity drives clarity. Clarity drives performance.

3. Align incentives with outcomesReward the actions that move the business forward. If it doesn’t support your goals, it doesn’t belong in the comp plan.

A strong compensation plan guides the org and the revenue generating team members. It sets expectations, reinforces culture, and helps your entire org move faster, together.

“The best comp plans reward the right behaviors, create clarity for the team, and support the business at every stage of growth.” — Bryant Krieger

Need Help With Yours?

🎧 Listen to the full episode of the Growth Department featuring Bryant Krieger for tactical advice, real stories, and sharp takes on modern comp strategy.

🔎 Want a second set of eyes on your plan? Reach out to Bryant at Optimize for a consultation or comp plan audit.