A comp plan can pay out like a record quarter even when bookings land at 61%.

AJ Bruno, co-founder and CEO of QuotaPath, joins hosts Adam Jay and Dale Zwizinski to work out who is accountable when it does.

They get into why AJ wants the CEO to sign off on comp, how short CRO tenure changes the picture, and where AI fits when it helps write the plan. AJ also scores Adam's Monday Morning Move.

We discuss:

• Why a rep at 70% of target can still be paid 85% of OTE
• Why AJ wants comp signed off at the CEO level
• What the CAC layer cake says about the real cost of a deal
• Why QuotaPath's admin NPS sits near 60 while rep NPS sits near zero
• Where AJ, Adam, and Dale land on clawbacks and mid-quarter plan changes

(00:00) The CRO who lasted two and a half months

(00:30) A made-up company that paid out on a miss

(02:45) How a rep at 70% of target takes home 85% of OTE

(04:15) The CAC layer cake and the real cost of a deal

(05:00) Why the CEO blames the CRO, and the three envelope story

(09:50) Who is accountable when AI builds the comp plan

(15:40) Admin NPS 60, rep NPS zero

(18:25) Nineteen month CRO tenure and boards that don't tell the truth

(24:25) Clawbacks, windfall clauses, and retention-based pay

(30:25) Monday Morning Move: AJ scores Adam's comp plan test

(36:20) Why changing a comp plan mid-quarter breaks trust

(37:55) Uncensored Questions: pay compression, Atlas bias, and dream vacations

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Most sales teams can win their best year ever and still not be able to explain why.

Jeff Bajorek, founder of Parabola Consulting and author of Rethink The Way You Sell, has spent his career pushing sales teams past comfortable half-truths. He joins hosts Adam Jay and Dale Zwizinski to dig into why so few companies actually know why they win.

They get into the uncomfortable questions most sales leaders avoid asking, and what AI is doing to make the problem worse.

We discuss:

• Why success is a worse teacher than failure
• How AI is flattening every company's messaging into the same pitch
• The five questions Jeff asks a client's best customers
• What happens to a sales team when its top performers retire
• Why perfectionism is quietly killing sales performance

(00:00) The cost of knowledge vs. the value of expertise
(00:49) The $42M distributor that can't explain its own best year
(03:42) Why success is a terrible teacher
(07:37) The 5/15/80 rule for why reps don't know why they win
(09:52) Why most companies still don't do enablement well
(10:44) When everyone claims to be the "gold standard"
(13:33) Where mediocrity is actually useful, and where it isn't
(24:32) Jeff's two-circle framework: what your best rep does and why your best customer buys
(25:58) The five questions for killer customer conversations
(30:20) What Jeff got wrong about why he was winning
(36:22) Monday Morning Move: find the gap between what your reps think and why customers buy
(39:45) Uncensored Questions: AI, sales training, and hard truths

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Firing people is the kindest thing you can do.

Barrett Brooks spent years as COO of ConvertKit, scaling the company past $30M before becoming an executive coach to founders and leaders. He joins hosts Adam Jay and Dale Zwizinski for a conversation about the uncomfortable side of people-first culture.

They get into what most leaders get wrong about kindness, accountability, and the gap between what a company says it values and what it actually rewards.

We discuss:

• Why a "people-first" culture can quietly protect your worst performers
• The real reason firing conversations get avoided, and why that's not kindness
• How to close the gap between stated values and lived behavior
• Building comp plans for intrinsically motivated, creative salespeople
• A simple exercise to learn what actually drives the people on your team

Chapters:
(00:00) Treating coaching like an athlete's craft
(01:29) Talent as a Culture Multiplier
(02:18) The hidden cost of an overly people-first culture
(05:00) "We should have fired more people"
(06:17) Setting boundaries like you would with a toddler
(09:14) The 1% of managers willing to have the hard conversation
(11:28) Where values collided with P&L at Kit
(14:50) What actually builds a winning culture
(18:46) Rebuilding a team after burnout
(25:56) The unsolved psychology of comp plans
(31:55) Monday Morning Move: closing the culture-phrase gap
(38:40) The Craft & Commerce speaker equity story
(41:48) Uncensored Questions

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