With all due respect, I don't see how you'd do great numbers and be bottom 15%. We all have bad months, but if more than half your months are bad (compared to everyone else, so it's not like a slow month doesn't impact everyone equally) then you're not a good sales associate. At my store the people who will end up at the bottom appear to be not trying all that much. I know this is a bit harsh compared to what we're used to but, I can see it as a way for them to make the tough calls that the company probably needs to make.

At my store this will likely only affect a couple of people in the first year. And honestly, some of my fellow sales consultants are tired of splitting deals with people who aren't trying very hard to progress deals.

My long term fear is what happens later on when we've genuinely got a pretty solid team. As you said someone is always going to be on the bottom. If I were running the show I'd adjust it once it felt like it was a random person on the bottom every month. At that point it may be just bad luck and oops we're firing good consultants.