How much are your salespeople really worth?

Commission only salespeople can be effective - however one of the major problems with a comm-only sales strategy is that salespeople in these roles, more often than not, become all about 'the sell' for obvious reasons: no sale -no pay -no eat!

Traditionally, comm-only sales-models promote a 'hunter' as opposed to 'gatherer' mentality, with many salespeople willingly spearing anything that moves in order to get paid, irrespective of the value being created for the customer, and oftentimes at the detriment of any genuine long term relationship.

A gun salesperson can take up to six months to get into the sales groove in a new organisation. I have seen a number of exceptional salespeople take even longer, but once a tipping-point in confidence is reached they then take-off exponentially.

A comm-only salesperson is not likely to be given the opportunity to accumulate a large amount of time to build confidence due to commercial pressures, nor are they likely to be able to personally survive financially during this time to reach such a point in their skill development.  

This all makes creating a comm-only sales-model trickly to get right, not to say impossible. It can be done, but if you want great salespeople they generally value their skills and time, and won't go anywhere near comm-only based on principle. 

I have found over the years, having hired and trained countless great salespeople, across industries, that a combination of a reasonable base salary (to keep their cash flow moving) and a generous commission and bonus structure that promotes the development of customer relationships over time - to be the most effective sales strategy