Rethinking the goals system

I am not going to talk about “earning less” to be “more human.” No. I am going to talk about earning more: real money, actually, not “love.”

How?

Spoiler: by adding Japanese culture to the current commercial representation model.

Now, I will explain.

Sales is an area as traditional as it is, often, harsh.

Leads (potential clients). Phone calls. WhatsApp. Goals. New month. All over again.

It works.

However, it is possible to transform the sales area into something even better.

By allowing the entry of an unusual ingredient in this market: compassion.

And I re-emphasize: without conceding—on the contrary, increasing—sales.

The technique I propose here is as follows.

If the representative/salesperson fails to achieve the established goals, instead of being “expelled” from that region or the company they work for, they continue selling to those clients they were able to sell to. By seniority. As long as they can maintain a minimum flow of sales.

Wait a minute, this cannot possibly work! — you retort?

If we analyze the four main actors in this market, we can analyze the advantages and disadvantages each one will have with this type of technique.

By adopting this mixed goals/seniority system, the business owner wins both ways:

The business owner does not lose any sales that the former representative was able to make.

The business owner gains the sales that the new, official representative manages to add.

Money in the pocket. The business owner adds, instead of “swapping.” Depending on the type of product and the type of relationship between clients and representatives/salespeople, it is not uncommon for representatives to take “their” clients along with them to a competing product. This always depends on the degrees of competition and relationship. The business owner, when combining goals/seniority, increases the chance of not suffering this type of loss, even if temporary. The business owner, therefore, wins.

It is appropriate to detail, now, how extra expenses are handled.

It is appropriate, now, to add details to the goals/seniority model: the business owner continues, just like in the traditional goals model, only providing resources, such as travel, lodging, and conferences, to the official, current representative/salesperson. The representative/salesperson who operates based on seniority will no longer have any extra resources from the company to operate, from the moment they lose their position for not meeting goals within the established deadlines. The former representative will have to sell on their own. The company will only, as it has always done, process the orders. But without bearing extra expenses (conferences, travel, lodging).

The business owner is protected. They only have to gain, nothing to lose. As they have always done, they only bear the expenses of an official, current representative per region.

And what happens to the representative who fails to achieve the goals?

The representative who does not achieve the goals receives several advantages.

In a sentence, it protects their heart. Their hairs. Their family.

The representative who does not achieve the goals is insured against losses or sudden changes. There is no “expulsion” in this mixed goals/seniority modality.

Their income is protected—it does not increase, but it also does not fall—depending on their own effort to manage to maintain solely those sales they were able to make.

It is appropriate to detail, now, some extreme cases. What if the representative becomes disabled (in some way)?

This method serves as a type of unemployment insurance, yet without bothering the government and, more importantly, without bothering the business owner or the sales.

How?

Let us assume the most critical scenario: the representative who does not achieve the goals suffers a stroke or another type of accident which, as a result, prevents the salesperson from achieving their goals or even making a sale.

The business owner and colleagues go to visit them in the hospital and sincerely sympathize.

Okay.

But what about the company?

Life does not stop. The other colleagues need to sell.

In this goals/seniority method, the former representative/salesperson, who failed to meet the goals, has the right to keep their former sales, “as long as they can maintain a minimum flow of sales.”

However, in this case, they cannot maintain the flow of sales: they are incapacitated for some reason.

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In this case, it is simply a matter of detailing what “maintaining a minimum flow of sales” means.

Minimum flow of sales by seniority

I propose—for example—that maintaining a minimum flow of sales means managing, at least every six months, to pull a sales order without using a call center or another representative. The company simply receives the money and delivers the order. If this happens at least once (or more) every six months, the client continues generating commission for the former salesperson, in the so-called sale by seniority.

Perhaps the reader is already realizing that in the worst case—for example, a total paralysis of sales—the former salesperson, who failed to meet the goals, will still receive, for six months, commissions on sales made by anyone in the name of clients whom the former salesperson was able to sell to.

It is “unemployment insurance,” in practice. Without bothering the government, much less the business owner. Natural security within the commercial flow.

This is in the worst case. 6 months of security, without any favors or donations. Only sales by seniority.

In more common cases, however, the former salesperson will be able to maintain, throughout their life, their sales by seniority—as long as their clients continue placing orders with them and as long as the company itself exists.

That is why I nicknamed the model “adding Japanese culture.”

In Japan, there is a culture of staying at the same job for a lifetime.

Without going quite that far, but getting close, we insert seniority “for a lifetime” for the former salesperson:

Without disturbing the new sales of the new, current representative (the salesperson by seniority cannot expand their sales); and

Without disturbing the business owner (the former salesperson does not receive expense allowances, travel tickets, or lodging).

This does not replicate Japanese culture ipsis literis, but it manages to soften career transitions.

Let us see:

The former salesperson becomes former, rather than current, because they only sell “30” when the target was “100,” beyond the maximum stipulated deadline. They earn a 10% commission on their sales: they earn “3.”

If they can maintain sales for these clients, they will continue receiving around “3,” keeping their income in the same bracket as before losing the position due to missed goals.

From the perspective of the representative who did not achieve the goals, their income is preserved immediately. Depending on the ties the representative has with the clients they serve, they will be able to maintain this client portfolio for a lifetime.

While looking for another source of income, or even when deciding to retire.

No one will mess with their client portfolio, due to seniority.

On the condition that the representative by seniority manages to maintain the minimum flow of sales—for example, making at least one sale themselves every six months, without a call center.

It is an excellent combination of Japanese security and the dynamism of the sales sector. A healthy mix: ingredients in the right proportion so that everyone wins: the business owner, the client, and the representatives—both the former and the new.

Let us analyze what two other actors win and lose: the client and the new representative/salesperson:

What does the client gain from the mixed goals/seniority technique?

The client, in tune with the representative, gains a more gradual transition.

Let us suppose that a glitch in the goal-setting system establishes unattainable numbers and, going unnoticed over the course of a year, three or four representatives lose the right to act as a sector representative for failing to achieve these exaggeratedly high goals, following the company's rules.

What happens to the client?

In the mixed goals/seniority system, the client barely notices this company stumble.

Why?

Because they will continue to be served by the first salesperson who assisted them, who would be exercising their right to operate by seniority, even without having achieved the goals.

And the subsequent representative, who managed, let us suppose, to add 5 more clients to the company's client portfolio but, similarly, failed to achieve the sector's general goals? Likewise, they will continue to have the right to operate, by seniority, with these five clients they managed to bring into the company's client portfolio. As long as they can maintain the minimum flow of sales.

It is always healthy to re-emphasize how the business owner only wins with this modality—losing no sales, even with many representative changes, even under stumbles in goal-setting.

The business owner is insured against stumbles in the goal-setting system.

It is even possible to bring back the salesperson who was operating before the eventual, erroneous establishment of abusive goals. Even in this scenario of doing commercial “justice,” the two or three representatives who quickly passed through the company, given opportunities due to the failure in establishing abusive goals, would also be protected by the right to maintain their small portfolios obtained in a short time, and consequently the small income they obtained, as long as they manage to maintain a minimum flow of sales, by seniority.

It is the end of abrupt movements. Of straight cuts. Without losing a single cent of sales. Everyone wins.

The client, as we have seen, remains protected, enveloped in a protective capsule, and does not even find out about above-normal movements in the frequency of representative exchanges.

And the new representative? Do they have advantages in this system?

Let us see!

At this point in the text, it is already possible to feel that there is no “former” representative. There is a representative.

That is, today we are all active “Neymars,” and tomorrow we will be “Casagrandes,” with a thousand stories to tell.

We will all be “former” representatives/salespeople.

Until the pill of eternal life is invented (and even after the invention of the eternal goal-achievement pill; until the pill of eternal goal-achievement is invented), there are huge chances that we will all be “former” in the future.

Therefore, immediately, the security of being able to maintain your income in the worst-case scenario by becoming a seniority salesperson is a security—an “insurance”—that protects any and all representatives operating under this proposed goals/seniority modality.

An umbrella for everyone.

Without bothering the government. Without stopping sales. Without bothering the business owner. The client wins—as we have seen. Who does not win?

There are still two more gains that are worth mentioning:

All sector sales enter the calculation for goal achievement

All sector sales—regardless of who gets the commission, by seniority or not—are computed for the sector in order to verify goal achievement.

What does this mean?

It means that:

if a sector's goal is 100; and salespeople by seniority are responsible for 30 of these sales;

It is up to the current representative to only complement, with their sales, what is missing from 30 to 100, to achieve the sector's goals.

What are the advantages of this calculation model?

There are two:

The salesperson who just joined already starts from 30, and not from zero (following our example), in the objective of achieving the sector's goals. And most importantly:

It is not necessary to “lower” or “flexibilize” goals temporarily to “help” a new incoming salesperson. No. Since the sales that were already being made in the sector continue to be made by seniority, it is enough to add all these sales together with the new representative's new sales, so there is never any need to change the goals. Ever.

Goals are calculated for a region, not for an individual representative/salesperson, ideally.

Why?

Because it is the region, not the representative, that has a GDP, a saturation point (for example—managing to sell to all possible clients in the region), a scenario.

Salesperson leaves, salesperson enters, the region is the same.

Therefore, from a sales projection standpoint, it is more stable to keep a region's goals independent of new/former salespeople.

If an exceptional salesperson manages to go far beyond the goals for a long period of time, excellent: they may be indicating an opportunity to increase the region's goals.

Therefore, in this mixed goals/seniority system, the goals remain untouched—even during the turbulent need to replace representatives.

The new representative does not start from zero, but from the total sales still maintained by seniority, when seeking to reach the region's goal.

As much as I can suggest, I suggest stretching the deadline, and not tampering with the goal values, so that a new representative has a little more time to adapt to the new endeavor and be able to reach the region's goal. For example, double the normal deadline requirement for achieving goals, only at the beginning. Then, yes, return to the normal deadline of the maximum period of non-achievement of goals, whatever it may be.

This is my peculiar contribution, to the extent of my current knowledge, for the functioning of the sales system, combining unchanged profit with the new ingredient of compassion, the elimination of abrupt/inhuman movements, the preservation of the family, and more security for everyone, from the business owner to the client.

Compassion and profit are not oil and water, but rather ingredients of a beautiful marriage, I propose and dare to try to prove, by logic, in this text which I now conclude, proposing the goals/seniority model.

Thank you, patient reader.