Like everyone here we're trying to save money. One of our "bright" ideas is to look for salespeople willing to work for equity plus commission only - no base. We hate paying base for non-productive salespeople for all of the obvious reasons.
As a many-time
Any luck with equity + commission-only sales plans/people?
Answers
I have found it very difficult to make that work. You may get some people to say "yes" and come on board, but right when you have them trained and going on calls they bail for a gig that pays them a base. They have mortgage payments, etc. to make and don't fare better than the rest of us when it comes to bringing in no cash. So your company's prospects had better be incredibly attractive to them or I think you will have real trouble holding on to anyone you find.
We put the new reps on salary for 6 months but after that, they are on 100% commission. However, we support them a great deal. We provide them with an initial data base of existing clients, we allow them to have an equal split of profit for anything over the standard mark-up, we provide them with
They love it!
Just a couple of additional comments to the excellent posts above....in one scenario where the sales cycle was several weeks long, we had to put in a 'draw' to smooth out the commission payments' timing. If the commission did not cover the draw after a review period, the salesperson was let go.
In another scenario, where the sales cycle was in days (e.g. in a telemarketing structure with several closes and lower dollar amounts per close), it was a lot of TLC, a small base (at the legal minimum wage+) reverting to 100% commission coverage after 30 days of post-training, on-the-job work.
As John notes, without a draw or a base, most persons would find the work daunting.
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