I love LinkedIn. For me, its not just a great networking tool, but a great learning tool. I especially love the various groups you can join and the discussions that you can contribute to and follow. One of the groups I belong to is called Sales Gravy. Someone posed the question “Does Commission Only Work?” There are a lot of responses (60+ and counting), and most seem to be leaning towards the side of, no, it generally doesn’t. Here’s what I said;
As far as commission only, I’m not a big proponent of it at all. It all goes to a risk-reward equation. The bigger the risk (i.e. full commission), the bigger the reward needs to be. That’s why brokers and real estate agents (good ones) pull in a million a year or more. But as we all know, those are a rare breed.
Any commission-only plan that would pay less than 100K a year is not going to attract a highly qualified candidate. And I’m really not very impressed in the “well our plans are uncapped – they can make whatever they want” argument. I’m talking about what can be made realistically – I mean sure – everyone can make 500K in theory selling in an uncapped plan, but show me someone who’s actually done it
Secondly – I always laugh when I hear someone tell me how “easy” something is. You state – “Getting demos completed and qualified is the easy part”. In my experience, there is nothing “easy” about sales (just as there is nothing “easy” about a lot of sophisticated professions that require structure, learning, education, relationship building, etc). This is why we are paid well – if anything is truly easy – then the amount of people willing and able to do it is greater, and the cost to find and acquire them less. Simple supply and demand. And yet, a few posts later you state – “i am in dire need of a few good men right away”. “Dire need”?? Sounds like the supply is not so abundant. Is it perhaps, not quite so easy to do what you need done, the demand for talent (hey – we all need a few good men) much higher and perhaps your “model” has compensation somewhat to the left of the intersection of the supply/demand curve. P.S. Why not a few good women?
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