Why Commissions Didn’t Fix Our Sales Problem

Why Commissions Didn’t Fix Our Sales Problem

“What if your sales problem isn’t your people — but the system they’re stuck in? Mike Carr spent years doing what everyone told him to do: commissions, quotas, performance plans. Every new hire came with the quiet assumption they’d be gone in a few months. He even optimized onboarding to make firing faster.

Then he did the math: it was costing ~$75,000 every time. He called it “Burning the Porsche.”

His friend Travis Timmons — who’d been applying Deming’s principles — kept nudging him to look at it differently. Mike’s first reaction? “This is crazy talk.”

In this episode, they walk through what changed, what didn’t work at first, and why the biggest shift wasn’t the system — it was the psychology. If you’ve ever felt stuck trying to fix your salespeople, this will change how you think about it.“

Get the full show notes here.

Listen on Apple Podcasts or Listen Notes.