What's "Club"?
Feb. 17th, 2023 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerI posted earlier today that I made President's Club at my company. I was surprised and, of course, excited. But you might be wondering what it even is.
President's Club, or just "Club" as it's sometimes referred to shorthand, is a reward for top performers in enterprise sales organizations. It's both a form of recognition among everyone in sales (totally one we put on our resumes, too!) and a special type of compensation. "Club" usually involves a fully paid trip to a resort destination. Everyone in Club goes there together for, say, 5 days. In past years my company has held Club at places such as Aruba, Cancún, and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. I went to club in Cabo San Lucas in 2019.
Typically sales reps who beat their quotas "go to Club". People in adjacent roles, such as me as a solutions architect/sales engineer, can get the award, too, for distinguishing themselves as high performers. For the reps the criteria are fairly objective: they've got a number to beat. For people like me, who don't carry a quota, the criteria are squishier. Often it's a qualitative decision made by an executive leader based on their own opinion and possibly other managers' recommendations.
Not all companies that do enterprise B2B sales do Club. Among the software companies I've worked at in the past umpteen years it's 50-50. In companies that don't offer Club it's often derided as "too expensive" or a boondoggle. The thing is, it is a boondoggle. But it's specifically a form of bonus compensation for top performers. In the context of overall employee compensation it's not too expensive. In fact it's planned in as part of the compensation program.
Where will we go this year? Right now we don't know! There was turnover among senior leadership in the past year, and a decision on this was one of the things left for the new executives to choose. We might do Aruba, Cancun, or Cabo San Lucas again. Personally I'd prefer somewhere else as I've been to all three of those places. But since the company's making these plans at the last moment their options are constrained. Our CRO joked that Club might be a camping trip this year. I told him afterwards that I had half of the gear with me in Las Vegas already: boots, a trekking pole, and a day pack.
President's Club, or just "Club" as it's sometimes referred to shorthand, is a reward for top performers in enterprise sales organizations. It's both a form of recognition among everyone in sales (totally one we put on our resumes, too!) and a special type of compensation. "Club" usually involves a fully paid trip to a resort destination. Everyone in Club goes there together for, say, 5 days. In past years my company has held Club at places such as Aruba, Cancún, and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. I went to club in Cabo San Lucas in 2019.
Typically sales reps who beat their quotas "go to Club". People in adjacent roles, such as me as a solutions architect/sales engineer, can get the award, too, for distinguishing themselves as high performers. For the reps the criteria are fairly objective: they've got a number to beat. For people like me, who don't carry a quota, the criteria are squishier. Often it's a qualitative decision made by an executive leader based on their own opinion and possibly other managers' recommendations.
Not all companies that do enterprise B2B sales do Club. Among the software companies I've worked at in the past umpteen years it's 50-50. In companies that don't offer Club it's often derided as "too expensive" or a boondoggle. The thing is, it is a boondoggle. But it's specifically a form of bonus compensation for top performers. In the context of overall employee compensation it's not too expensive. In fact it's planned in as part of the compensation program.
Where will we go this year? Right now we don't know! There was turnover among senior leadership in the past year, and a decision on this was one of the things left for the new executives to choose. We might do Aruba, Cancun, or Cabo San Lucas again. Personally I'd prefer somewhere else as I've been to all three of those places. But since the company's making these plans at the last moment their options are constrained. Our CRO joked that Club might be a camping trip this year. I told him afterwards that I had half of the gear with me in Las Vegas already: boots, a trekking pole, and a day pack.
