Incentives motivate behaviors.  Hungry sales reps play to win and learn quickly how to game the plan. Smart business leaders strive to deliver smart incentive plans to motivate the right behaviors throughout an organization rather than fighting against the tide.

Chris Cabrera, CEO of Xactly, has cracked the code on how to create thoughtful incentive plans that appreciate and inspire gamers instead of working against them them… and delight finance leaders in the process.

Cabrera shares tremendous learning in his new book, Game the Plan: Every Sales Rep’s Dream, Every CFO’s Nightmare, available online now at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. In Game the Plan, Cabrera urges sales and finance leaders to take a revolutionary approach to incentives, blending real-life data and the science of motivation. When structured strategically, incentive programs have the ability to fuel better employee performance and engagement, leading to higher sales and greater organizational efficiency.

Here’s the CliffsNotes version to help you quickly bridge the ‘sales and finance’ gap and unleash the awesome power of motivation.

1. Gaming the plan is fair, not foul

Understand — and avoid — the 12 most common compensation mistakes, and learn to create incentive plans that offer wins for your employees and your company by downloading Game the Plan’s Chapter 1 Kit. It includes an exclusive interview with businessman and NFL Hall-of-Famer Ronnie Lott!

2. Incentives are powerful

We are all motivated by incentives that influence our behavior, but some incentives are more impactful than others.  Learn which incentives are the most successful so you can identify and eliminate motivational myths to positively adjust performance in your organization. Then, build powerful perks into your own compensation plans. Resources are available in Game the Plan’s Chapter 2 Kit.

3. Data makes designing effective incentives easier than ever

For the first time ever, you can combine academic, anecdotal, and empirical data to build incentive strategies that transform your corporate culture for the better. Understand how to read your data, and get a sense for how your company’s performance compares to others.

4. Sales and finance are on the same team when building incentive plans

Gain tools and strategies that provide transparency, accuracy, and efficiency for bridging the gap between sales and finance leaders.

5. Incentive compensation plans aren’t just for sales reps

Harness the unique motivations of each employee to boost productivity and profits across every job function in each department by making data-driven decisions.  This book is chock full of tips for where to start.

6. Benchmarking against comparable companies improves decision-making

Learn best practices from industry winners (and losers) to drive behavior that will catapult your organization to the next level.

Xactly is a long-time AppExchange Partner – their first app, Xactly Incent, was published in 2006, just months after the AppExchange launched – currently with three powerful compensation management apps.  Check out all three Xactly Apps on the AppExchange.