Christopher W. Cabrera - Game the Plan: Every Sales Reps Dream; Every CFOs Nightmare

Advance Praise for Game the Plan

As the founder and CEO of the company that pioneered on-demand SPM, Chris Cabrera stands out his vision, his experience, and his access to hard data. It takes his unusual combination to inspire his unconventional insightthat gaming can be the source of innovation and motivation, and that the best incentive planners will invite gaming that adds to the bottom line.
Alan Benson, PhD candidate, MIT Sloan

The ideas in Game the Plan resonate for me both as a business executive and a former pro football player. As evidenced in my own life, the possibility of winning the Super Bowl was enough incentive for me to give all I could by cutting off part of my little finger. The right incentives are powerful motivators and Game the Plan explains these ideas brilliantly.
Ronnie Lott, NFL Hall of Fame 2000 Inductee

Chris and his team have designed a tool that creates more engaged employees, drives the right behavior, and helps organizations meet their goals. Ive seen his principles work firsthand over my own career.
Steve Cakebread, former CFO, salesforce.com

This is an easy, fast, and insightful read that delivers far more than even the title promises. While its fun to read how Chris Cabrera got fired and then competed with his previous employer to build a highly successful company, the real value of this meaningful book leaps at you as the author unveils the many powerful links between human motivation and business performance. A must-read for C-level executives.
Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder & CEO, Selling Power

In Game the Plan, Chris Cabrera gives us real-world tips, relevant research, and great examples to better reward our sales producers. Start here to game the plan well!
David J. Cichelli, Sr. Vice President, The Alexander Group, Inc

Compensation plans can make or break employee morale and customer satisfaction. Chris Cabrera not only knows all that, but in this book, for the first time, he shows you how to build those plans. They work for employees and drive business with customers. So start reading the book. Youll be really glad you did.
Paul Greenberg, author, CRM at the Speed of Light (4th edition)

Chris Cabrera challenges everyday thinking and common perceptions about sales incentives and makes you rethink your strategies. If youve thumbed your nose at incentives because you think they create win-lose scenarios, Chris will quickly change your mind. Youll read the last page of this book hoping your reps game the plan.
Keith Krach, Chairman & CEO, DocuSign

Chris has written a fantastic book for executives that helps bridge the sales & finance chasm of compensation. He has some spot-on tips for helping sales and finance work together. Ive always been interested in motivation, so I especially enjoyed his sections on how to treat different generations: Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y. Plus, his Top 5 Motivation Mistakes are so true and so common. If you deal with compensationparticularly sales compensationyou need to read this book.
Aaron Ross, bestselling author of Predictable Revenue

Game the Plan is the perfect example of why you should go with the tide instead of against it. Theres brilliance in the simplicity of taking the natural tendencies of human behavior and rewarding those who achieve financial results.
Rodahl Leong-Lyons, VP of SalesAmericas, Hyatt Hotels Corporation

Game the Plan is a must-read. Chris Cabrera shows how to use real-life data to create killer incentive compensation strategies that will transform your enterprise.
Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO, salesforce.com

Published by River Grove Books
Austin, TX
www.rivergrovebooks.com

Copyright 2014 Xactly Corp.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Distributed by River Grove Books

For ordering information or special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact River Grove Books at PO Box 91869, Austin, TX 78709, 512.891.6100.

Design and composition by Greenleaf Book Group LLC
Cover design by Xactly Corp.

Publishers Cataloging-In-Publication Data
Cabrera, Christopher W.
Game the plan : every sales reps dream, every CFOs nightmare / Christopher W.
Cabrera.1st ed.
p. ; cm.
Issued also as an ebook.
Includes bibliographical references.

1. Sales personnelSalaries, etc. 2. Incentives in industry. 3. Compensation management. I. Title.

Paperback ISBN 978-1-938416-54-5
Ebook ISBN 978-1-938416-55-2
Hardcover ISBN 978-1-938416-74-3

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

14 15 16 17 18 19 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

First Edition

I dedicate this book to my father. He was my mentor and inspiration, and he left us too soon.

W hen Chris Cabrera asked me to write this foreword, I didnt think twice about accepting.

Chris and I first met when I was at the software company Autodesk. He sold me an on-site compensation system that was truly terrible. It created more problems than solutions. (Chris tells his side of the story in the introduction.) A few years later, when I was at salesforce.com, he tried to sell me a new-and-improved version of that same software. Although the headaches caused by the last product were gone, they werent forgotten. My answer was, unequivocally, No way.

Although that exchange could have threatened our relationship, it didnt. Despite the fact that I was a finance guy and Chris was a sales guy, we had a lot in common. We both cared deeply about finding the best ways to motivate and incent employees. As two people with vast experience in the area of incentive compensation, we knew the current way of doing things could use some serious improvement. Plus, Chris wanted to know my reasoning. He asked me a simple question that changed the way my organizationand many like itmanaged incentive compensation: Why not?

So I told him. He listened to me talk about why on-site systems didnt work. He listened to me talk about where current incentive compensation systems fell short, and how I thought they needed to evolve to provide value to todays growing, modern organizations.

Basically, I was describing every CFOs nightmare, which is why I understood the tagline for this book immediately.

Chris listened to me talk about my nightmare. Then, he left with his software, and I went back to using spreadsheets to manage my sales incentive compensation. I knew my system was far from perfectthat there had to be a better way of doing thingsbut at the time, it was really the only option left to me. I simply wasnt willing to consider using an on-site system. Instead, I would sit tight and wait for something better to come along.

And it did, a few months later, when Chris sat across from me again. This time he was CEO of the newly minted Xactly, and he was excited to tell me about a brand-new incentive compensation system he and his team had created: a cloud-based, software as a service (SaaS) incentive compensation system that promised to meet all of my expectations, and more.

I was excited, not to mention a bit honored, to hear that my feedback a few months before had motivated him to start the company.

As I mentioned above, Im a finance guy and Chris is a sales guy. I work with a lot of salespeople, and it often feels like were living on two different planets. Sales leaders will do some crazy expensive stuff to increase sales. Finance people like me are constantly trying to rein things in. But the more I listened to Chris, the more excited I became, because I realized he had created a product that would finally allow sales and finance people to speak the same language. This product would give organizations like mine the clear, hard data they needed to make decisions that both Sales and Finance could get behind.