Ep. 494 — Ryan & Kim | How to Comp Your Executive Team So You Stop Being the Referee

4 min read

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Episode Summary

It’s 7 a.m. and your sales lead and your ops lead are already arguing about whether the last deal was any good. You’re the referee. Again. You pay these people well, and you’re still the one settling every fight. I was 26 when I lived this at my family’s business, until I tied all three of my executives onto one comp plan. Then I walked in one morning and found two of them pricing a deal together, on their own. That’s the episode. Kim and I follow Module 8 into the actual build: why the income statement only has three buckets and three seats, how the 50/25/25 model ropes every executive to every other executive’s number, how to size the bonus pool top-down off normalized net operating income so it’s always affordable, and why you can’t build any of it without your goals, a budget, a forecast, and a financial model in front of you. Get it right and you stop being adult daycare. One of our clients ran the math and decided not to hire a $500,000 CEO, because the seat got fun again.

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Top 10 Takeaways

  1. If you sell something and then deliver it, sales and service are natural enemies.
  2. Traditional comp pays each side on its own wins. That makes you the full-time referee.
  3. Every income statement has three buckets: revenue, margins, and cash. Those are your three seats.
  4. Pay each executive 50 percent on their own seat, 25 percent on each of the others.
  5. Now your leaders own the outcome together. Winning at a peer’s expense stops paying.
  6. Build the bonus pool top-down: a fixed slice of normalized net operating income.
  7. Comp your executives on numbers they control, not on a peer’s leadership growth.
  8. What the company can afford sets executive pay. Not the title. Not the wish.
  9. Get comp right and you stop refereeing. The owner’s seat becomes fun again.
  10. There is no comp plan without your goals, budget, forecast, and financial model.

Sound Bites

“I was 26 at the time. I don’t have to be adult daycare anymore. They’re working on this together, toward the outcome that’s tied to the ownership goals.” (@00:04:18) — Ryan Tansom

“It’s this total inversion. Your monkeys are your monkeys, and you get paid for them appropriately.” (@00:20:28) — Ryan Tansom

“For every five boomers that retire, there’s just one Kim. And she goes, I need 300 grand, because I can get this from someone willing to pay me.” (@00:50:46) — Ryan Tansom

“Figuring out creative ways to get these people on board is almost a life-threatening level of urgency. Otherwise you sell your company for half the price, because you’re stuck in it.” (@00:51:34) — Ryan Tansom

“You’ve got to do the work. You can’t just say it’s time to hire and go find somebody. The comp plan has to be grounded in the data, the ownership goals, your financials.” (@01:05:43) — Kim Clark

Resources Mentioned

  • Executive Compensation Workshop (June 25, 2026) — The $100 workshop where you build your own executive comp plan tied to your ownership goals. — ryantansom.com
  • 90-Day Boardroom Blueprint — The onboarding program where Ryan walks owners through the iBD Ownership OS, the financial model, the budget, and the forecast. — ryantansom.com/coaching
  • Strategic Talent Partners (Mike Frommelt) — Minnesota-based executive search and leadership assessment firm. C-suite recruiting and leadership team roadmap assessments. — strategictalentpartners.com
  • Strata Cloud Accountants — Fractional CFO firm Ryan named as a preferred iBD partner that delivers the three-statement model. — stratacloudaccountants.com
  • Robert Half Salary Guide — Published salary guide referenced as one base-pay data point. — roberthalf.com

Connections

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