Most sales jobs include some form of commission. Some are sales reps. are only compensated for their work on a commission bases where as other position include a base pay and commissions on top of that. Today in class we talked about the importance of making sure a product or service is the right fit for a customer before selling it to them. If you as a sales agent determine that the product is not the right fit or your services will not be helpful for the client in question it is best for both parties to go their separate ways. This is easy to do when you have a lot of sales that year/month/week but it is much harder to do when you are going through a cold streak. This problem can be compounded by a commission only position as when you do not sell anything you do not get paid at all. This can lead sales agents to try to force the sale upon clients that my not be interested or have no use for the product/service. This is only natural to do as people hold jobs so they can make money and live the life they wish to. However, this instinct is counter intuitive in this situation. It is good to have a incentive to sell as it makes you work harder and not slack off. However, when a sales agent really need or wants to make a sale they may become pushy and less customer focused and more inwardly focused. This in turn my lead to bad sales pitches as now the agent is more focused on what the product can do (features) and less focused on the benefit to the specific customer in front of them. I am not saying commission or commission only jobs are bad as the agent does need some incentive to sell. All I am saying is if a sales person becomes to focused on making commission alone This may hurt them in the long run as they become less focused on the customer and relationship building and more focused on the immediate outcome.
By Max Chmura
BoweryJE22 2 thoughts on “The danger of commission only jobs”
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Most actual sales jobs are “feast or famine” because they are mostly commission based. However, even when a “famine” occurs it is important to not pressure the person into buying a product that is not going to help them because this will impact your reputation in the long run. While commission is a good way to motivate people, it is important to take the job knowing there might be difficult times and telling yourself that you cannot mislead someone for your own benefit, because in all actuality it is a short term solution with negative long term effects.
This is a thought-provoking perspective. It seems similar to the argument against getting paid by the hour since that could incentivize workers to spend longer than they need to on a project.