"Show me the incentives, and I'll show you the outcomes."
It’s one of Charlie Munger’s most famous quotes. He was Warren Buffett's long-time partner at Berkshire Hathaway. It explains a lot of what happens in sales organisations.
Many salespeople are paid on commission when the customer signs. Not when the customer succeeds. Not when they renew. Not when they become a reference. You get paid at signature, and everything after that is someone else's problem.
I've watched this dynamic play out for four decades. The pattern never changes. Early celebration, late scrambling. Deals that looked good in the CRM become Customer Success emergencies. Renewals that should have been automatic become rescue missions. References dry up because customers remember what you promised versus what arrived.
Your incentive structure won't change this week. Probably not next quarter. Maybe not next year. But at Sales Reset, we’re confident that AI will quickly make incentives based on customer success inevitable.
In the meantime, and to give you a head start, here's a thought experiment worth running instead.
The Question
Imagine you got paid nothing at the signature. Zero. You’ll receive your commission only after the customer has reported sufficient evidence that they’re on track to achieve the results they purchased. Chances are, there’ll be enough evidence of expected impact after 90 days to pay your commission.
What would you do differently tomorrow morning?
This isn't a trick question, and it's not a guilt trip. Your mortgage doesn't care about customer outcomes. I understand that. But your reputation does. Your renewal rate does. Your references do. The version of you trying to hit target eighteen months from now cares very much about the deals you're closing today.
What Actually Changes
When I've seen sellers adopt this way of thinking, even while operating under standard commission structures, three things shift:
Hunting for Risk - First, they hunt for risk rather than pitching features. The question moves from "how do I get this over the line?" to "what could stop this customer from succeeding?" That's a different conversation. It surfaces implementation concerns, stakeholder misalignment, unrealistic timelines, and capability gaps that would otherwise explode after signature. Finding these early isn't pessimism. It's protection.
Specific Outcomes - Second, they get more specific about outcomes before the proposal. Not "improved efficiency" or "better visibility" but actual, measurable results with timeframes and owners. The discipline of writing down what success looks like for this customer, in terms they'd recognise and agree with, changes what gets proposed and to whom. If you can't write it down, you're not ready to propose.
More Stakeholders - Third, they involve different people earlier. Outcomes don't happen in procurement. They happen in operations, in finance, in the teams that will actually use what you're selling. Sellers operating with an outcome mindset build relationships with the people who'll determine success, not just the people who control signature.
Works Under Current Incentives!
Here's what surprises people: selling for customer outcomes often improves your results under today's incentives.
Deals close more cleanly when stakeholders align on what success looks like. Procurement negotiations go differently when the business case is specific and owned by operational leaders. Competitors struggle when you've built relationships beyond the buying committee. Renewals stop being a fight when the customer can see, in their own terms, what they've achieved.
The mindset shift doesn't require sacrifice. It's not about choosing customer outcomes over your income. The sellers I've watched adopt this approach perform better on traditional metrics while building more sustainable careers.
AI Makes This More Practical Now
A decade ago, this approach was genuinely difficult at scale. Documenting outcome expectations, coordinating stakeholders, capturing evidence of results, and keeping everyone aligned through implementation - the administrative overhead was real. Good sellers did it anyway, but it required heroic effort.
That constraint is dissolving. The AI tools now exist to efficiently document outcome agreements, track stakeholder commitments, capture evidence as it emerges, and maintain visibility across buying and delivery teams. The practical barriers to outcome accountability are lower than ever.
This isn't about technology. It's about what becomes possible when the friction disappears.
The Experiment
You don't need to change your commission plan to run this experiment. You only need to change what you treat as progress.
Pick three opportunities in your pipeline. For each one, ask yourself: if I were only getting paid when this customer could evidence results:
What would I need to know that I don't know today?
Who do I need to be talking to that I'm not?
What would I need to have in writing that I don't have in writing?
What evidence review meeting would I book now?
Then do those things. Not because you should. Because it protects you.
The deals that can't survive these questions are telling you something. They're the ones that close with celebration and end with scrambling. They're the ones that damage your reputation, drain your energy, and make next year harder than it needs to be.
The thought experiment costs nothing. It takes a few minutes of honest reflection. And it might be the most valuable thing you do before Q1 starts.
Sales Reset helps B2B organisations build sales approaches that measure success by customer outcomes, not just contract signings. The methodology works at any level but transforms when adopted organisation-wide.
There’s a version of this article for sales team leaders here, and one for senior leaders here.
