The business owner needed a heavy-hitting business development manager, someone who could close massive, multi-year contracts and change the trajectory of the business. The salary that manager deserved would have strained payroll before a single new contract was signed, and underpaying him risked losing him to someone who valued him properly. The fix came from structuring the offer around equity and reduced tax exposure instead of a straight paycheck.
Callum had found someone worth building an offer around: Grant, a business development heavy-hitter capable of landing the kind of multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts Northline needed to hit its three-year growth target. The problem wasn't Grant's fit. It was the math.
Pay him what a hire like that is worth in straight salary, and payroll takes a real hit before he's closed a single deal. Underpay him, and Northline loses him to someone who understands his value better.
"I know that Owen and I and Nolan, or whoever else is in the business right now, can't do it. We can't do that on our own. We never will."
— Callum, owner
That admission is the real starting point. Northline runs on three leaders trying to do the work of ten, and the pressure to bring in outside firepower isn't optional so much as inevitable. The question wasn't whether to hire Grant. It was how to pay him in a way that actually worked for both sides.
Stuart's advice started with a reframe: don't think about Grant's offer as a salary line. Think about it as a share of the value he's going to create.
A straight cash offer big enough to be competitive would eat a large chunk of Northline's margin before a single contract closed. Structuring the deal around equity and a commission that rewards him for what he actually brings in changes the picture. Grant gets upside tied to real outcomes instead of a fixed number that's either too small to attract him or too large to sustain.
The commission piece needs a shape to it, too. Pay a strong percentage on new business in the year it closes, then step that percentage down in subsequent years as the account moves from acquisition to maintenance. Done well, that keeps Grant hungry for new business rather than coasting on residuals from deals he closed three years ago (a trap many owners fall into without meaning to).
There's a second layer to why equity works here, and it's less about incentive and more about what actually lands in Grant's pocket.
Equity as a Tax Shield
Someone paid a large salary as a regular employee gets taxed at ordinary income rates, and at higher income levels, that rate climbs fast. Say a $200,000 bonus is taxed as income: depending on the bracket, close to half of it can disappear before it ever reaches a bank account. Structure some of that same value as equity or a corporate dividend instead, taxed under capital gains rules, and the number left over can look very different. Same dollar amount created for the business. A very different amount that actually goes to the person who created it.
This is exactly why a heavy-hitter like Grant might value an equity-and-commission structure over a higher salary. It's not more money on paper. It's more money he actually keeps.
Does that mean every hire should be paid this way? Not necessarily. It only makes sense when the hire brings enough new value that tying pay to outcomes, rather than to a fixed number, benefits both sides.
Underneath the compensation question sits a Team Engine problem that a single great hire won't fully solve.
Northline still runs on Callum, Owen, and Nolan absorbing nearly everything between them. Bringing in Grant adds real firepower on the business development side, but it doesn't build the layer of leadership underneath that a business scaling toward $25 million eventually needs. Employees who are good at their jobs still need constant handholding, not because they're not capable, but because there's no scorecard telling them what they actually own.
Grant's hire buys time and revenue. It doesn't buy structure. Those are two different problems, and Northline will eventually need to solve both.
This kind of compensation structuring shows up anywhere a business needs to attract outside talent it can't fully fund in cash alone.
An industrial welding firm that usually bids on complete factory rewiring projects sometimes leases out its certified welders by the hour to a general contractor short-staffed on a major build. Same underlying idea as Grant's deal: monetizing capacity through a flexible structure rather than a single fixed arrangement.
An environmental remediation firm partners with a certified small business that wins federal cleanup contracts on its own preferred bidding status, then acts as the rapid-deployment sub-consultant when a big package lands. The remediation firm didn't win the contract directly. It structured its way into the value anyway.
Even the sourcing story translates. Northline's owner found some of the industry's best relationships at the Calgary Stampede, an event that seems unrelated to mining. A marine dredging contractor might find the same thing at an agricultural logistics expo that happens to be where river harbor masters gather. The best hires and partnerships rarely show up where you'd expect to find them.
If you've found the right person but the offer doesn't pencil out in straight salary, the structure is probably the problem, not the budget. Book a 30-minute call to see whether equity, commission structure, or something else entirely is the lever that actually makes the hire affordable.
Callum didn't need a bigger payroll budget. He needed a different shape for the offer. Grant's deal worked because the value flowed through equity and a commission structure built to reward outcomes, not because Northline suddenly found more cash lying around.
Every owner facing this same wall, a great hire who's technically unaffordable in salary alone, is really facing a structuring problem, not a budget problem. The businesses that get this right don't always pay more. They just pay smarter.
This article is based on an anonymized Clear Results client engagement. Names, business details, and identifying information have been changed to protect confidentiality. It is intended for general informational purposes and does not constitute financial, legal, or personalized business advice.
Model it against the revenue and margin the role is realistically expected to generate, not against what feels comfortable to commit to on a monthly budget. If the hire is expected to bring in several times their compensation in new margin within the first year or two, the number that looked scary in isolation usually clears itself. Read more in The Revenue Lie.
Pay a strong percentage in the year a deal closes, then step it down over the following one or two years as the account shifts from active acquisition to ongoing maintenance. This keeps the incentive sharp to land new business, rather than letting someone coast indefinitely on deals they closed years earlier. Read more in The Commission Trap.
Often, yes. Income taxed as a straight salary or bonus is taxed at ordinary rates, which climb fast at higher income levels. Value delivered through equity or dividends can be taxed differently, and structured well, that difference can meaningfully change what a hire actually takes home for the same amount of value created. It's worth structuring deliberately rather than defaulting to cash, even if it's simpler. Read more in The Org Chart You Actually Need.
Not on its own. A strong hire adds real capacity in their specific lane, but it doesn't automatically build the management layer a scaling business needs underneath the founders. Those are two separate problems: buying leverage in one function, and building a structure that doesn't depend entirely on the founders for everything else. Read more in The Org Chart You Actually Need.
Stuart Trier is the Founder and CEO of Clear Results. Over the past 20 years, Stuart has built, bought, and sold 11 companies across the home service, healthcare, and marketing industries. He built his first company from startup to $8M in revenue in 3 years before a successful exit, then built a chain of 28 healthcare clinics and sold the business to a publicly traded company. Following that acquisition, Stuart spent 3 years working alongside the CEO, helping lead the organization through a take-private transaction before participating in a nine-figure exit to a Fortune 10 company. Today, he's the lead investor behind an electrical services platform operating across 3 U.S. states, and has worked directly with owners through 1,800+ strategic advisory sessions.
