The sales profession is often enough compared to waging war where opposing sides battle for the same coveted resources, or to play sports, where one team battles other teams for supremacy, where there can only be one winner.

Sales professionals are the tip of the spear when it comes to bringing revenues to the company. They are in the field developing business opportunities, they represent the company in front of its potential customers, they present the products and services, and they work to create a commercial environment where the customer and their company can conduct mutually beneficial business. Being the tribe’s ‘hunters’, salespeople expect their share of the spoils of the deal in the form of bonuses and compensation which is tied to the deal size and profitability and is paid on top of their regular salaries.

This variable compensation and its role as a motivational driver for salespeople to overachieve their quotas in the high-tech industry is the subject of this paper.