Our sales reps hit their weekly outbound meeting targets by booking unqualified discovery calls with friends and vendors just to keep their Scorecard green. How do we stop employees from gaming activity numbers to the detriment of actual revenue?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Employees game Scorecard numbers when leadership measures raw activity volume without defining objective qualification gates. When keeping a box green becomes the primary goal, human nature finds the easiest route to hit the quota. Booking conversations with unqualified contacts or non-buyers hits an activity target on paper, but it clogs your pipeline, wastes valuable calendar time, and produces zero revenue.

To eliminate metric gaming, tighten your definitions and pair activity volume with quality standards. A leading indicator must represent meaningful, revenue-producing progress, not hollow motion. If an outbound meeting does not meet explicit criteria, it cannot be recorded on the Scorecard.

Execute three structural fixes to eliminate gaming:

- Define unambiguous entry criteria: Replace Qualified Meetings with a measurable that requires verified prospect traits, such as decision-maker title, target company revenue, and an acknowledged operational need.
- Pair volume with a conversion metric: Track both first meetings held and meetings advanced to proposal. If an individual shows thirty meetings and zero pipeline advancement over four weeks, they are padding the top of the funnel with worthless conversations.
- Inspect the data during quarterly reviews: Run spot audits on Scorecard activity during one-on-one reviews. If an employee is artificially inflating activity to appear compliant, address it through the People Analyzer using GWC.

Numbers must reflect reality. When you enforce strict standards for what counts, your team stops manufacturing vanity activity and starts focusing on genuine commercial outcomes.