It has been proven over and over again going back to ancient times that a person no matter how effective can manage only a fairly small group of people. It is important that the compensation plan promotes proper and efficient management behavior.
Unfortunately many compensation plans require building so many legs that managing your personally enrolled becomes completely impossible.
There are a few debates on the ideal number of people someone can manage, but the most common numbers are between three and seven.
It is therefore important that the compensation plan rewards building strength with three to seven people. Beyond that and people are not going to be able to work with the additional people that they bring into the business and that has been shown time and again to reduce the most powerful part of building a company, strong leadership.