You grew the territory.

Took business from competitors. Opened new accounts. Converted surgeons who swore they’d never switch.

Finished the year well over plan.

Then the new comp plan drops.

Congratulations. Your reward for a great year is a bigger number to chase.

This is the Commission Plan Trap. Almost every rep runs into it eventually. Almost nobody explains it before you sign the offer letter.

So let’s explain it.

You inherit a $5M territory. You grow it to $6M.

The company just picked up $1M in new revenue. You had a career year. Everybody’s happy.

Then planning season hits.

Your $6M is now the floor. Corporate wants growth on top of it, so your new quota lands somewhere around $6.3M.

Here’s the part that stings:

Do the exact same $6M next year, same surgeons, same accounts, same cases, and you finish around 95%.

Last year, that number paid you at 120% with accelerators. This year, it pays you below plan.

You didn’t get worse. The baseline moved.

And that’s the friendly version. It can also look like:

Nobody has to be the villain here. Quotas get built off growth targets, and growth targets get built off last year. That’s the math.

But if you don’t understand the math, you’ll keep running faster just to stay in place.

OTE is the number recruiters lead with and the number reps compare.

It’s also the least useful number in the offer.

OTE tells you what you make if you hit plan. It tells you nothing about how likely that is, or what happens when you blow past it.

A $300K OTE tied to a quota that needs 25% growth in a flat market is a $200K job with a great headline.

A $225K OTE with an attainable number, real accelerators, and account protection can out-earn it. Year after year.

Before you compare two numbers, ask five questions.

The rep who understands quota mechanics, accelerators, and account protection will make better career moves than the rep chasing the biggest number on the offer letter. Every time.

If you’re in medical device sales, you know the drill.

Vendormate. Green Security. symplr. SEC³URE. VPro. O.R. Trax.

Different hospitals use different credentialing platforms, but many require the same types of compliance training before you can walk through the door.

Bloodborne Pathogens. HIPAA. AdvaMed. OR Protocols. Radiation Safety. CPR/BLS.

That’s where FastCredentials comes in.

FastCredentials gives reps one place to complete compliance training and download certificates that may be required as part of the hospital credentialing process.

You can take the training and exams for free, then purchase the certificates you actually need. Or get the Annual All-Access Pass for unlimited access to the full course catalog.

The regular price is $49.99/year.

MDR readers get 20% off: $39.99/year. with promo code MDR20

New series.

Recruiters see what reps never do: who gets the offer, who gets passed on, and why.

First guest: Alex Clark of AC Search Partners.

We’re covering:

These aren’t hour-long podcasts. They’re short, direct conversations built for real answers and clips you can watch between cases.

Got a question for Alex? Hit reply. The best ones make the interview. (Want to know how to ask the five comp questions above without hurting your candidacy? That’s a good one.)

Stryker buys into soft-tissue robotics. Stryker is making a roughly $400M preferred equity investment in CMR Surgical, which also gives it an exclusive option to acquire the whole company, and Stryker becomes the exclusive U.S. sales agent for the Versius portfolio. It lands as J&J and Medtronic have both picked up FDA nods for their own robots. The robotics spending race isn’t slowing down. strykermedtechdive

DePuy Synthes separation is still on the clock. J&J is targeting completion around mid-2027, and Bloomberg has reported that Apollo is among the buyout groups in talks, at a valuation near $20B. J&J itself warned the process could bring disruption and faster share losses in the interim. Ownership changes ripple into leadership, territory design, investment, and hiring. If you sell with or against DePuy, watch this. pipelineroadmassdevice

STERIS adds to the OR. STERIS is buying privately held Xodus Medical, best known for its Pink Pad patient positioning system, for $2.1B, with closing expected by December 31, 2026. Another big player buying specialty OR consumables. Consolidation keeps rolling. KSL

Your workday doesn’t happen at a desk.

It happens in the hallway after a case, in the parking garage between hospitals, in the ten minutes before your next meeting. That’s exactly when the follow-up emails, CRM updates, case notes, and texts pile up.

Wispr Flow lets you talk instead of type. Say it, send it, move on.

If you have paid time left on an individual Granola plan, we'll match it with a Wispr Flow subscription that includes Notetaker and dictation, and add bonus time, up to 12 months total. Sign in or create a Wispr account and submit proof of your plan to check eligibility.

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Everything in this issue comes back to one problem: reps make career decisions with bad data.

Generic salary estimates. Recruiter ranges. Advertised OTE that says nothing about attainment.

We’re building the alternative: an independent dataset of what medical device professionals actually earn, across specialties, companies, experience levels, and roles.

Already contributed? Forward this email to one rep who should.

See you next week.