In an industry as relationship-driven and performance-based as beverage distribution, one question drives nearly every frontline behavior: How do I get paid?
And yet, in many distributorships, the answer isn’t clear—not to sales reps, not to managers, and sometimes not even to senior leadership. Comp plans evolve over time. Incentives get layered on inconsistently. Reps get rewarded for hitting volume goals but don’t understand why that doesn’t always match up with margin performance. Over time, this lack of clarity erodes alignment, morale, and effectiveness.
At Superior Beverage, a suburban Chicago Anheuser-Busch wholesaler, leadership decided to fix that. As Dan Deufel moved into an executive role, he knew they had to stop “getting cute” with compensation and start telling the full truth about how reps make money.
“We weren’t hiding anything,” he said on the Tapped In Sales podcast. “But we also weren’t being clear. And without clarity, you can’t build alignment.”
What followed was a cultural shift rooted in transparency of rep pay—how it’s calculated, what drives it, and how to improve it. And it’s made all the difference.
The Problem: Confusing Plans, Misaligned Incentives
Most reps don’t need more motivation—they need more understanding.
Before the change, Superior’s variable compensation included all the familiar ingredients: volume targets, promotional execution, supplier incentives, and GP targets. But not everyone was on the same plan. Goals varied by team. Some reps didn’t clearly understand how much was tied to gross profit or finished product loss. Some supplier programs layered on extra complexity.
“It became hard to coach,” said Deufel. “If a rep’s not sure what moves the needle on their paycheck, they default to what they know—push volume.”
And while volume matters, it’s not always what’s best for the business or the rep.
The Shift: One Simple Truth—“This Is How You Make Money Here”
Superior made the decision to simplify and standardize their comp structure—at least the part they control.
“We separated our internal variable comp from supplier-driven programs,” Deufel explained. “We created a clear, transparent plan based on three things: volume, gross profit, and finished product loss.”
Every rep—regardless of territory or channel—now sees:
- What portion of their pay is at risk
- How they earn more when they exceed expectations
- What behaviors drive the most impact
Importantly, the plan is the same across the board. That consistency created a shared understanding and language across the entire sales team.
“It’s easy to explain. It’s easy to measure. It’s easy for peers to talk about with each other,” Deufel said. “And it’s fair.”
The Result: Ownership, Confidence, and Better Conversations
What happens when reps actually understand how they get paid?
They act like owners.
“They started asking better questions,” Deufel said. “‘Why am I discounting this much? What if I move this volume into single-serve to improve GP? What’s my FPL rate on this route?’”
Even more, reps became more receptive to change. When Superior needed to adjust pricing, take costs up, or shift portfolio focus, there was no confusion—because reps saw the connection to their income.
“Before, they’d say, ‘Why are we more expensive than the competitor?’” Deufel said. “Now they say, ‘If I can get price parity and keep the rate of sale, I’m making more margin. Let’s go.’”
Transparency replaced resistance with reasoning.
The Hard Part: Letting Go of Legacy Thinking
Interestingly, it wasn’t frontline reps who struggled with the shift—it was some upper managers.
“When you start asking, ‘Why are we discounting this way?’ or ‘Why are we participating at this rate?’ it challenges legacy decisions,” Deufel said.
The key was to coach through it, not around it. By aligning everyone around gross profit and equipping them with clean, consistent data, Superior rewired conversations across the organization.
A Lesson for Distributors: Compensation Isn’t Just Math—It’s Messaging
Too often, compensation is treated as a back-office function. Something you build once, update annually, and track in spreadsheets.
But for a sales team, it’s the lens through which every decision is made. If the plan isn’t clear, the path to success isn’t either.
At Superior, simplifying and explaining the comp plan helped create:
- Stronger field execution, because reps knew how to prioritize
- More meaningful manager coaching, because goals were aligned
- Greater trust, because reps could verify the fairness of the system
- Faster onboarding, because the model was easy to teach and scale
Transparency Is a Strategy, Not a Risk
Some wholesalers still hesitate to show their reps how margins work. But Dan Deufel believes that mindset holds the business back.
“There’s a fear that if reps know the numbers, they’ll reverse engineer them or question everything,” he said. “But it’s the opposite. When you show them how they make money, you earn trust. And you give them the ability to make smarter decisions on the street.”
Final Thought: Reps Don’t Need Motivation. They Need Visibility.
Most beverage sales reps want to win. But winning only works if everyone’s playing the same game—and understands the rules.
At Superior Beverage, transparency around compensation didn’t just change how reps got paid. It changed how they thought, how they acted, and how they collaborated.
“We want our reps to feel like they’re in the boat with us,” said Deufel. “Not just rowing hard—but rowing in the same direction.”
Want to Learn More?
Hear the full conversation with Dan Deufel on transparency, compensation, and driving sales alignment in Episode 87 of the Tapped In Sales Podcast.
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