By Andy Klose - Associate Partner and Head of Advisory
In many consulting firms, the incentives debate starts with an apparently obvious thought: if senior leaders are expected to win work, why not pay them like salespeople and introduce sales commissions? The logic feels clean—more deals, more pay, more growth. Yet in consulting, this “clean” logic often produces messy outcomes: weaker risk discipline, more internal friction, and—most damaging—reduced client trust. The reason is structural, not ideological. Classic, deal-based sales commissions are designed for transactional selling; consulting is a relational, team-based, judgment-heavy business where value is co-created and realized over time.
The intuitive idea – and where it goes wrong
Product-style sales commissions assume a world of discrete transactions: a salesperson closes a deal, hands it over, and gets paid. The model works because the boundaries are clear—between selling and delivery, between one deal and the next, and between individual contribution and enterprise value.
Consulting rarely fits that template. “Selling” is usually inseparable from diagnosing the problem, shaping the approach, assembling the right team, and standing behind the outcome. When incentives treat consulting like a sequence of independent deals, they encourage behaviors that optimize short-term bookings at the expense of long-term client impact and firm health.
What makes consulting structurally different from transactional sales
Sales commissions become increasingly fragile as offerings become more bespoke and knowledge-intensive. In classic consulting—strategy, operations, HR, organization, transformation—the economics differ in three ways.
First, sales and delivery are integrated. Senior consultants and partners do not merely close; they commit the firm, lead the work, and remain accountable for what was promised.
Second, solutions are heterogeneous by design. Even when proposals reuse methods and modules, each engagement is shaped by client context, politics, risk, data availability, team mix, and outcome uncertainty. This makes “fair” and behaviorally sound deal-level metrics hard to define.
Third, the asset is the relationship, not the transaction. Consulting revenue typically unfolds in waves—diagnosis, design, implementation, follow-on scaling—within a relationship where trust accumulates slowly and can be lost quickly.
A practical rule holds: the more relational and bespoke the work, the less compatible deal-level sales commissions become.
How sales commissions backfire in consulting
Once you view consulting as an interdependent, multi-year value chain, several failure mechanisms become predictable. They reinforce each other, which is why “small” commission schemes often expand into large cultural and economic problems over time.
1. Sales commissions shift the partner mindset from “best answer” to “best-sellable answer”
Consulting buyers pay for judgment and independence. Deal-based sales commissions introduce a strong bias toward whatever is easiest to monetize now. Common patterns include scope inflation, premature solutioning, and a preference for short, high-fee projects over work that builds sustainable client capability. Even if outcomes remain acceptable, clients quickly sense when advice is optimized for revenue rather than relevance. Trust erodes—and trust is the foundation of repeat business.
2. Sales commissions weaken risk discipline and deal quality
Healthy consulting firms say “no” more often than outsiders assume: no to unrealistic timelines, no to misaligned stakeholders, no to underpriced work, no to engagements where success probability is low. Sales commissions can invert that discipline. A large, high-fee, high-risk project becomes personally attractive even if the firm later absorbs the delivery pain, write-offs, or reputational impact. Over time, governance mechanisms—review boards, pricing discipline, delivery readiness checks—get pressured by individuals who are rewarded for closing, not for outcomes.
3. Sales commissions undermine collaboration in a team-based business
Modern consulting delivery is cross-practice and cross-geography. The best client solution often requires multiple senior leaders and specialists to contribute. Sales commissions turn that collaborative system into a contest for “origination credit.” The predictable consequences are territorial behavior (“my client”), reluctance to bring in colleagues if it dilutes payout, and internal negotiation about credit allocation that consumes energy better spent on the client. In a partnership model, internal trust is a strategic asset; sales commissions tax that asset.
4. Sales commissions distort time allocation in multi-task leadership roles
Senior consulting roles are inherently multi-dimensional. Partners and senior leaders must balance business development with delivery leadership, talent development, intellectual capital, and firm stewardship. High-powered incentives tied heavily to sales drive effort toward what is measured and paid, crowding out activities that build long-term advantage—coaching, proposition building, quality assurance, recruiting, and leadership roles. The firm may temporarily see a spike in bookings while quietly accumulating delivery and people risks that surface later.
5. Sales commissions mis-attribute value creation and fuel perceived unfairness
Few consulting wins are attributable to one person. A sale often reflects prior delivery excellence, a long-nurtured relationship, specialist insight, a high-performing team, and the firm’s reputation. Deal-based sales commissions force an artificial choice: either reward the visible “closer” disproportionately, or build complex split models that feel arbitrary and create constant debate. Both outcomes erode perceived fairness—one of the most sensitive levers in professional services cultures.
When commission-like incentives can work (and the boundary conditions)
This is not an argument against variable pay or against rewarding business development. The question is fit: under which conditions do sales commissions align with the operating model?
Commission-like approaches are more viable when most of the following are true:
- Standardized, repeatable offerings (e.g., fixed-scope diagnostics, packaged implementations, training products);
- Clear separation of roles between sales and delivery (dedicated sales teams with limited delivery accountability);
- Lower delivery uncertainty and more predictable scope, timelines, and outcomes;
- Limited cross-team dependency or clearly defined handovers and responsibilities.
Even then, two guardrails are critical: (1) strong controls to prevent overselling or misrepresentation, and (2) commission weightings that signal importance without overwhelming other leadership responsibilities.
In other words, commissions fit best where consulting behaves more like a product business. In bespoke advisory partnerships, those conditions are the exception—not the norm.
What to do instead: incentive principles aligned with consulting economics
If deal-level sales commissions are structurally misaligned, what should consulting firms use to reward and steer senior performance? There is no universal formula, but a consistent set of principles tends to work across partnership and professional services models.
Reward the portfolio, not the deal
Shift the unit of performance from individual transactions to the health of a client portfolio over time. This supports better behavior: disciplined pricing, thoughtful sequencing of engagements, and an emphasis on relationship durability rather than quarterly wins.
Use a balanced set of metrics, not a single “sales number”
Senior performance should reflect the true job, not a simplified proxy. Many firms use a balanced scorecard that includes financial outcomes (revenue and profitability), client outcomes (satisfaction, retention, expansion), people outcomes (team feedback, development, hiring contribution), and firm-building outcomes (thought leadership, proposition development, leadership roles). Business development remains highly valued—but not isolated from delivery quality and stewardship.
Keep “sales credit” as an input to judgment, not an automatic cash engine
Tracking origination and contribution is useful—especially for promotions, recognition, and performance discussions. The risk arises when that tracking becomes a rigid, formulaic payout mechanism. Consulting requires judgment in assessing contribution, risk-taking quality, collaboration, and long-term impact. Incentive systems should preserve room for that judgment.
Protect the partnership logic
Partnerships thrive on shared ownership, mutual accountability, and investment in the next generation. Incentives should reinforce those norms: encouraging leaders to bring the best team to the client, share relationships, develop talent, and protect the firm’s reputation—even when doing so reduces short-term personal upside.
Implications for HR and firm leadership
Incentive design in consulting is not a technical exercise; it is a strategic choice about culture and operating model. HR and leadership teams should treat sales commissions as a “model decision,” not a compensation tweak. Introducing deal-based commissions often forces a firm—implicitly—toward a more individualistic, franchise-like structure with higher internal competition and weaker collective governance.
A more sustainable path typically involves three moves:
- Align incentives with how value is created (team-based, relational, outcome-oriented).
- Design for the long term (multi-year performance, portfolio health, reputation protection).
- Make trade-offs explicit (accepting slightly lower short-term sales intensity in exchange for better collaboration, lower delivery risk, and stronger client relationships).
Conclusion: Don’t install a transactional engine in a relational business
Sales commissions are not inherently “bad.” They are simply optimized for a different context: standardized offerings, separable sales and delivery roles, and value captured in discrete transactions. Consulting—at its core—is the opposite: bespoke problem solving, integrated delivery accountability, and trust built over time.
For consulting firms, the most important question is therefore not, “How do we bolt sales commissions onto our partnership?” It is: Which behaviors and cultural norms does our business model require—and what incentive architecture reinforces those behaviors rather than fighting them? In most advisory partnerships, honest answers to that question lead away from deal-level commissions and toward more balanced, portfolio-based, and collective mechanisms that reward sustainable client impact.
We would be pleased to assist you with any additional inquiries you may have and offer recommendations on how to enhance your organisation’s compensation and incentive models.
Andy Klose is an Associate Partner at Vencon Research International and heads the firm’s advisory unit.
Vencon Research International is a leading provider of compensation benchmarking and research as well as of compensation and performance-related consulting services for professional service firms, especially for audit and tax, management consulting, and IT services firms. Vencon Research International provides services to a full range of clients in more than 75 countries worldwide and is proud to name more than 85% of the world’s major consulting and/or professional services firm its clients.