"Show me the incentives, and I'll show you the outcomes."
Charlie Munger's observation explains most of what happens in your sales organisation. You pay commission at signature. So does almost everyone else.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that 95% of B2B sales compensation is tied to signed orders. It's so universal that it feels like a law of nature rather than a choice. But it is a choice - and it creates predictable problems.
You measure quarterly bookings. You hope for customer success. You worry about annual retention.
This isn't hypocrisy. It's structural tension. And it plays out predictably.
I've watched this pattern play out across four decades. Sales teams optimise for what they're paid to do. Customers sign contracts based on promises. Implementation teams inherit deals they weren't consulted on. Customer Success scrambles to rescue relationships that were never set up to succeed. Renewals that should be automatic become negotiations. References dry up.
The revenue that looked so good when it was booked becomes the churn that undermines next year's growth.
The Thought Experiment
Imagine your sales compensation worked differently. Commission was paid 90 days after go-live, but only to customers who provided evidence that they were on track to achieve the outcomes they purchased.
Look at last quarter's closed deals. Which ones would you feel confident defending under that model? Which ones would make you nervous?
That instinct is data.
The Gap You're Managing
Most senior leaders I work with understand this tension intuitively. They know some revenue is more valuable than other revenue. They know certain deals create a disproportionate operational burden. They know the signature-to-renewal gap is where margin disappears.
But compensation redesign is complex, politically sensitive, and slow-moving. So the tension persists.
Here's what I've observed: you don't need to redesign compensation to address the gap. You need to start measuring what you actually care about.
Close probability tells you whether deals will be signed. Every pipeline review asks about it. But there's a second probability worth tracking: outcome probability. How likely is this customer to achieve the results they're buying?
Outcome Probability = Our best current assessment, based on evidence, that this customer will achieve specific results within an agreed timeframe.
These two probabilities are related but independent. A deal can have a high likelihood of closing and a low probability of success. That's your operational risk, sitting in the forecast, waiting to become a problem.
Outcome accountability doesn’t mean outcome control. It means defining mutual commitments and evidence before commitments are agreed.
What Changes When You Track Both
Organisations that start asking about outcome probability - even informally - see three shifts.
Forecast conversations change. Instead of just "will it close and when?" the question becomes "will it work and how will we know?" Deals with vague outcome definitions get flagged earlier. Pipeline reviews surface delivery risk before signature, when it can still be addressed.
Sales and delivery align earlier. When sellers know the outcome probability will be discussed, they consider implementation and customer success before proposing solutions. Stakeholder alignment happens during the sale, not after. Handovers improve because there's something concrete to hand over.
Revenue quality becomes visible. You start seeing patterns. Which segments produce high-outcome-probability deals? Which product configurations? Which sales approaches? The data exists - it just hasn't previously been surfaced as a metric anyone tracks.
The Commercial Case
This isn't about virtue. It's about growth reliability.
Fragile revenue - deals that close but struggle to deliver - costs more than it's worth. The sales effort to win it. The implementation effort to rescue it, the customer success effort required to retain it and the opportunity cost of references that never materialise.
Reliable revenue - deals sold with clear, shared outcome expectations - compounds. Implementation goes faster. Customers expand because they can see results. References flow because customers remember what was promised and what arrived.
The gap between what you pay for (signatures) and what you need (outcomes) is a strategic liability. Closing that gap doesn't require a redesign of compensation. It requires making outcome probability visible.
The AI Shift: Why This Is More Practical Now
A decade ago, tracking outcome expectations across a sales organisation was administratively prohibitive. The documentation burden alone made it impractical.
That constraint is dissolving. AI tools are becoming increasingly effective at capturing outcome agreements, tracking stakeholder commitments, and flagging deals with vague success criteria. The friction that made outcome accountability impractical is disappearing fast.
This isn't about technology. It's about what becomes strategically possible when the practical barriers are gone.
The Experiment
You don't need to redesign compensation to test this. You only need to add one question to your next forecast review.
For significant deals in the pipeline, ask: What is the probability of a successful outcome? How likely is this customer to achieve the results they're buying, and what evidence supports that assessment?
You'll get uncomfortable silence the first time. That's valuable information.
The deals where your sales team can't answer the question are your hidden risk. Not because they won't close - they might. But closing is just the beginning; whether that revenue will compound or turn negative depends on what comes next.
The experiment costs nothing. It takes one leadership conversation. And it might reveal where your growth strategy is weaker than it looks, and an increasingly self-evident alternative.
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 are versions of this article for salespeople and for sales team leaders.
Is your organisation ready? Moving to outcome accountability is a systemic reset. If you are a Senior Leader prepared to engage deeply, we invite you and your colleagues to consider participating in a 90-minute Vision Workshop. It's valuable whether you proceed or not, but it might be uncomfortable. Click here for more details about the Sales Reset® Vision Workshop.
