The Sales Compensation Show

GTM transformation gets real the minute it hits the comp plan. In this episode, Genesys’ sales compensation leader Jason Wright joins Forma.ai CEO Nabeil Alazzam to unpack what happens when changing strategy starts changing how sellers work and how they expect to earn. Drawing on nearly two decades across complex sales organizations, Jason gets into why simplicity becomes harder to protect as priorities multiply, what comp teams miss when they’re too far removed from the field, how variable pay can become culturally difficult to change, and why transformation often loses momentum once seller attrition and customer risk enter the conversation.

What could the next era of sales compensation look like? Raji Narayanan, Head of Sales Compensation at Atlassian, joins Nabeil Alazzam to explore big picture thinking on how incentive design can become more precise without becoming more complicated. They unpack why comp plans get over-engineered, seller attention as a finite resource, and how AI could move incentives from broad SPIFFs toward targeted, deal-level “surge comp.”

What does it take to run a $2B go-to-market plan when the targets need to stretch the business, the forecast needs to stay honest, and AI is starting to change how the work gets done? Dominic Ballinger, VP of Revenue Operations at Sage, joins us to share what he’s learned about setting credible growth targets, translating executive ambition into quotas and incentives, and why bad news has to be able to travel through the forecast. He also takes us inside how Sage is putting AI to work across RevOps today—and considers what comes next: jobs unbundled into tasks, pressure on seat-based SaaS pricing, collapsing GTM silos, and a bigger role for RevOps as the “revenue architect” of the business.

Most operators own a piece of the go-to-market engine. Shefali Raghavan, SVP of GTM Strategy & Operations at G2, owns all of it. She was one of Twitter's first-ever sales ops hires, and has since built and scaled GTM systems at Salesforce, Airtable, and now G2. In this episode, she breaks down how to build sales compensation that really captures your strategy, how to scale from PLG to enterprise, and survive M&A without losing what made your company great.

Sales compensation is certainly influences behavior. But what does academic research tell us about the behavior it creates? In this episode, University of Houston Associate Professor Johannes Habel joins Nabeil Alazzam to explore the underlying psychology behind seller performance, including the unexpected consequences of stronger incentives, whether top performers should be compensated differently, and how AI may reshape incentives and the sales force itself.

This week, ZoomInfo's VP of Revenue Operations Mollie Bodensteiner gives a candid look at how she thinks about sales compensation. From plan design and quota credibility to governance, seller behavior, data, and the realities behind difficult decisions. Listen in for the principles she relies on, warning signals she watches for, and what revenue leaders should be willing to question when a plan isn't working as intended.

What does it take to turn business strategy into clear priorities for more than 37K+ sellers across 140 countries? Chinesh Gandhi, Director of Sales Operations at Microsoft, joins Nabeil Alazzam on the show to share how an engineering mindset can strengthen quota setting, cross-functional planning, and Sales Operations at enterprise scale. He also explores the significant role AI can play in quota setting, and shares his take on whether a healthy quota system *should* put every seller above 100% attainment.

Sales compensation is often where GTM problems show up, but it is not always where they start. And comp can't be tasked with creating total GTM clarity. Our latest guest, Marnie Sprenger, Sr. Director, Sales Compensation at Nutanix, joins Forma.ai CEO Nabeil Alazzam to discuss why sales comp leaders are increasingly operating as designers, detectives, and advisors. She advises on looking beyond plan design to diagnose the broader system around incentives, quotas, territories, governance, crediting, and seller trust.

Bringing a fresh perspective to The Sales Compensation Show, Lauren Silvers, Director of Sales Transformation at Okta, joins Nabeil Alazzam for a wide-ranging conversation on enablement, RevOps, AI, and the future of sales performance. Lauren shares why enablement is evolving into sales performance engineering, how organizations can drive meaningful behavior change across the go-to-market team, and what it takes to build systems that help sellers perform at their best in an increasingly AI-enabled world.

Global GTM and sales compensation leader Prev Dole joins Nabeil Alazzam for a candid, seasoned look at what really makes sales comp plans work or fall apart. From the first thing she inspects when stepping into a new comp role to why late planning quietly derails Q1 momentum, Prev shares the lessons that only come from years inside one of GTM’s most complex functions. Listen for sharp perspective on sales comp’s growing strategic seat at the table, why well-designed plans still fail in rollout, and whether clarity matters more than simplicity in modern incentive design.