Bill Canady warns that letting sales staff decide which revenue streams to cut creates bias: they'll favor cutting accounts they already dislike. Instead, separate the roles: finance handles analysis, operators provide capacity numbers, and an impartial group with no commission exposure makes the final cuts. Sales still owns execution and customer conversations, just not the cut list.
One structural point, and that one determines whether any of this survives. Do not let the people compensated on the revenue decide which revenue to cut. There's a misalignment in incentives. It's a comment on incentives, and incentives always win. It's how you pay them. If your VP of sales owned Quad 4 exit list, that list will be short and it will contain accounts he already didn't like. He already thought they were leaving, and it will be revised upward twice before it's implemented. So build the decision differently. Finance owns the analysis. Operators own the capacity numbers. The decision sits with a small group chaired by somebody with no commission exposure. Don't ask them to take and eliminate themselves, right? Do it with people who are not judged by it. With you breaking the ties, commercial gets a full voice and commercial owns the execution and the customer conversations because they're the only ones who can. That's their job. Commercial does not own the list.
