From bookings to revenue: how Clarivate is rethinking sales incentives

What does it actually take to move a sales organization from bookings-based thinking to revenue accountability? In this episode, Heather Anderton, VP of Sales Operations and Enablement at Clarivate, joins Nabeil Alazzam to unpack Clarivate’s shift toward revenue quota, the change management behind it, and why the core comp plan often does more than layered SPIFFs ever will. It’s a candid conversation on incentive design, seller trust, and how sales ops and enablement can work together to make big change stick.

What happens when the metric your sales team is paid on no longer reflects the outcome the business actually needs?

In this episode of The Sales Compensation Show, Nabeil Alazzam sits down with Heather Anderton, VP of Sales Operations and Enablement at Clarivate, for a candid look at what it takes to move a sales organization toward revenue quota.

Heather shares why Clarivate made the shift from bookings-based thinking toward revenue accountability, what this change means for sellers, and how her team is working through the operational realities behind it. The conversation gets into the hard parts leaders often underestimate: imperfect data, field trust, training, leadership consistency, and the need to keep improving after rollout instead of getting stuck waiting for perfect conditions.

They also explore why Heather’s team is uniquely positioned to lead this kind of transformation. Because sales ops and enablement sit together under her leadership, Clarivate has been able to connect comp plan design more closely to seller education, field readiness, and business priorities.

The episode also tackles a second major theme: whether SPIFFs really drive incremental performance. Heather explains why Clarivate stepped away from them, what her team learned from measuring their impact, and why she believes a stronger core comp plan is often a more effective lever for shaping seller behavior.

If you work in sales compensation, RevOps, sales operations, or sales enablement, this episode offers practical insight into how incentive strategy can better reflect business reality, and what it takes to bring the field with you when the stakes are high.

In this episode, tune in to hear about:

Why Clarivate is moving sellers toward revenue quota
What leaders underestimate about comp change management
How to build confidence when the data foundation is still evolving
Why a more rewarding core comp plan can outperform layered SPIFFs
Why system limitations should not dictate compensation strategy
How sales ops and enablement can work together to make change stick