Straight (100%) Commission Jobs are Killing Small Companies

Straight commission jobs are killing small companies. Maybe even more than Covid.

I know what you're going to say- that salespeople make the most money in the workforce, and that it's great to "kill what you eat". (What a lovely way to think about your job, eh?)

To a certain point, I agree. I've been a salesman since I was 6 years old, selling Pow-wow Popcorn door to door to pay for camping trips with Indian Guides. (Save the outrage... it was 1972.) I've sold everything from yachts and jets to 3D printers and ski resorts. For the most part I was pretty good at it and enjoyed it.

But things have changed... Dramatically.

When the dynamic (salary or draw against commission / straight commission) was created by shrewd business owners, the world was pre-internet and fairly well-mannered. All the tools that a salesperson had were in their head and in their rolodex.

It wasn't a bad model. Companies received profits, salespeople worked with some freedom and autonomy (all but unheard of in the 21st century) and customers were educated and followed-up with and treated fairly when problems or questions arose.

Employees could count on a certain amount of honesty and integrity from their potential clients.

Phone calls returned.

Meetings scheduled and kept.

and a degree trust from the head office to make a deal. And potential clients could count on a certain amount of honesty and integrity from the salesperson. Because, well...PEOPLE could count on a certain amount of honesty and integrity from other people. Reputation mattered.

But that's not the case anymore.

Clients lie. They blame their accounting Dept. They blame budget cuts. They have dozens of ways to "decide to go in a different direction" after eating hours and hours of a salesperson's time, (and a little bit of their soul) with absolutely no regard for the person at the end of the phone. Or in the waiting area outside the office.

Now to be clear, I'm not talking about the guy wearing a headset, in a different country, calling and interrupting your dinner. Screw that guy.

But I AM talking about a professional who put on a tie and shined his shoes and showed up on time for a 9:00am meeting across town. That person deserves to get paid for his time and effort, because it's not his fault if the client decides to do business with a competitor that has an inferior product and a cheaper price, because that company doesn't care if it screws its customers by providing them with crap and then not servicing it.

So what happens?

The professional, educated, respectable salesperson gets cut out of the deal, so an order-taker selling lies and fake promises with a crap product can get the deal.

Nobody wins.

The client gets crap. The company gets a crap salesperson who will generate complaints and chargebacks and disappear into the night. The crap salesperson never gets proper training or mentoring by someone who knows how to do it right and retain customers, so she bounces from job to job, fleecing different groups of customers with different crap products. The company can't keep customers, and doesn't really know what their clients want, because they're only selling on price.

Lose. Lose. Lose.

This is why Jeff and Jack's companies are doing so much business. They remove the ability for the client to lie from the equation. They remove the ability for the salesperson to serve a customer's needs. They are, in fact mega-order-takers, and they leave their clients with nothing but bots and return addresses. The only time a potential client can waste is their own, as they spend hours researching what they think they want, all the while being guided by bots, programs and artificial intelligence.

And yes... the prices are marginally less expensive than if there were salespeople involved.

The end result?

The Death of The Salesmen... one more nail in the coffin of the middle class. One less profession where actually being able to speak with people "face to face" was a benefit instead of a liability. One more step into a future where the more connected you are, the less connected you are.