Why Must You Pay Sales People Commissions? (a16z.com)

Because they see the money by gurps_npc · 2017-09-12 04:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

When you hire someone to write code, they have no idea how much profit you are going to make off of them. Same thing when you pay someone to cook/wait/do carpentry/be a reception/ or do 90% of other jobs.

But when you pay someone to be a salesperson they know EXACTLY how much income they generate. It's not that hard to estimate how much profit they are earning for the company. This puts them in the single best employee/employer bargaining position.

So bosses HAVE to give sales commissions. Otherwise all the good salespeople quit and move to the competition who is willing to do it.

Salespeople have the best leverage, so they get the best deal. In exchange they have to give up safety. It's single most capitalistic employee job.

--
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com

Re:Because they see the money by szy · 2017-09-12 05:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

A good product almost sells itself.
A product that almost sells itself is simply priced too cheap ;)
Re:Because they see the money by tomhath · 2017-09-12 05:08 · Score: 1

High volume/low price tech can get away with advertising rather than a sales staff.
But semi-custom products that sell for hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of millions of dollars (e.g. Epic Electronic Medical Record) are always sold one-off to very cautious buyers.
Re:Because they see the money by phantomfive · 2017-09-12 05:15 · Score: 2

In tech on the other hand, commissioned sales is stupid. A good product almost sells itself.
You've obviously never done B2B, on either side.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:Because they see the money by Maxo-Texas · 2017-09-12 05:22 · Score: 1

99% of the products on the market beg to disagree with your position.
Sales people sell a very restricted range of products.
Usually, as you allude, over priced by relying on emotions or sex to trick you into spending too much.

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Re:Because they see the money by whoever57 · 2017-09-12 05:26 · Score: 1, Informative

But when you pay someone to be a salesperson they know EXACTLY how much income they generate.
That's true, but not the complete picture.
In general (VC funded startups excepted), what is important to a company is profit, not revenue. A sale person who increases revenue simply by agreeing to lower prices and hence at reduced profit is not so valuable to the company.
This is a very important concern in software companies, where the cost of manufacturing is zero, yet, customers must pay enough to support future product development.

--
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Re:Because they see the money by phantomfive · 2017-09-12 05:35 · Score: 1

Nobody in the B2B world has 'good products', it's all SAS, Oracle apps etc.
A lot of that stuff is good. Good as measured by: will having this product save money on the bottom line?
It doesn't have to be good, it doesn't have to be pretty, it has to let you fire more people than the product itself costs.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:Because they see the money by parkinglot777 · 2017-09-12 05:50 · Score: 1

I agreed that salesman/saleswoman should get commission as a motivation to do the job. If there is no motivation, why would a person try to do his/her best for her job? However, I am not going to get into abuse of the model though (for both not enough commission and overly promises) because that would be a completely different topic.
I actually agreed with the other poster that TFA is a troll. Just because TFA has the word "engineering" in it -- comparing engineering with sales job -- it should not be posted here at all.
Re:Because they see the money by goose-incarnated · 2017-09-12 06:04 · Score: 1

Captcha: "gofuckyourelf"
My poor elf!

--
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Re:Because they see the money by shaitand · 2017-09-12 06:32 · Score: 1

"A product that almost sells itself is simply priced too cheap ;)"

It can be, by an entire sales commission worth. Just offer the sales people a variable salary that ranges from minimum wage to what your marketing people make depending on performance. People who have a knack for sales aren't everyone but they aren't uncommon like those with the raw capacity to learn to be talented in STEM. Pretty much anyone who was popular in high school has what it takes. There is no reason the performance based incentive has to scale to a major chunk of the deal.
Re:Because they see the money by war4peace · 2017-09-12 06:36 · Score: 1

Those pointy ears though... mmmmm....

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...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Re:Because they see the money by HyperQuantum · 2017-09-12 07:07 · Score: 1

A product that almost sells itself is simply priced too cheap ;)
Like toilet paper?

--
I am not really here right now.
Re:Because they see the money by nine-times · 2017-09-12 08:02 · Score: 1

Salespeople have the best leverage, so they get the best deal.
It's not just that. As you mention, you can easily see how much money a salesperson is bringing in, which provides a simple metric of job performance. Providing incentives for job performance is generally difficult because there aren't good metrics.
If you were to pay a programmer based on the number of lines of code they write, then their incentive is to write a bloated program with a lot of lines of code. They can game that metric, which isn't good. If you waiter simply based on how many tables they serve, then their incentive is to serve a lot of tables, even if they don't do it well. That's why it makes sense to have a portion of their income tied to tips, which incentivizes them to focus on customer satisfaction.
But with sales, there's a great job performance metric for how well a salesperson is doing. It's not an easy metric to game. The amount of money they make in sales is generally going to be proportional to the benefit they provide to the company.
If other roles had such a direct metric that was equally hard to game, I think you'd see more economic incentives being tied to those metrics. For example, I might expect that factories have some kind of incentive based on the number of units a worker can produce that pass QA. It's a pretty good metric of performance that's hard to game.
Re:Because they see the money by Altrag · 2017-09-12 08:27 · Score: 1

TP isn't selling itself. It's being sold by assholes.
Re:Because they see the money by Durrik · 2017-09-12 08:33 · Score: 1

You also have to structure the commission right. I worked for a company that bought another company that had just straight gross commission for the the sales people. That company was losing money which is why they were bought. It turned out a lot of the problems were caused by that commission structure, where the sales people did everything to get the sale together, including marking the product down so that it was sold at a loss and offering free support. They didn't care about the profitability of the company, only their own bottom line.

If you structure the commission based on the profit on a deal then the sales people will only push the high profit margin products and newer products that are still working off their R&D costs get neglected and may never become profitable.

While I agree you have to provide commission to encourage your sales force, you have to do it in such a way that is of value to the company. Ideally it would be of value to the customer too, but Wells Fargo proved that isn't usual.

--
Software Engineer & Writer of Military Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog: petermwright.com Twitter: WrightPeterM
Re:Because they see the money by Shotgun · 2017-09-12 08:52 · Score: 1

And dirty assholes at that.

--
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Re:Because they see the money by Anubis+IV · 2017-09-12 08:55 · Score: 2

By that logic, wouldn't Apple be considered underpriced?
After all, they don't pay commissions, so the products have to sell themselves, but they have also had the highest retail sales in the world for the last several years running (the second place retailer has been Tiffany's, but at last I heard, Apple had annual sales around $6000/sqft to Tiffany's $3000/sqft, with the margin growing each year). As such, the only reasonable conclusion we can reach from what you've said is that Apple is pricing their wares too cheap, which may mean that you're the first person ever on Slashdot to suggest that Apple is pricing their stuff for cheap.
Of course, the summary is bunk as well. After all, it would suggest that Apple's retail sales are failing outright because they don't pay commissions, despite the evidence to the contrary.
Re:Because they see the money by sfcat · 2017-09-12 09:54 · Score: 1

And dirty assholes at that.
I think you mean shitty assholes.

--
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Re:Because they see the money by sfcat · 2017-09-12 10:02 · Score: 1

If other roles had such a direct metric that was equally hard to game, I think you'd see more economic incentives being tied to those metrics. For example, I might expect that factories have some kind of incentive based on the number of units a worker can produce that pass QA. It's a pretty good metric of performance that's hard to game.
Its easy to game. Most systems are. In this case, its about promising the impossible and giving away freebies on the backend to make up for it. I've worked at many places where many specific customers went from being profitable to unprofitable due to sales people trying to increase sales but not giving a shit if the entire sale ended up being cash flow positive to the entire company. I've seen it more places than I haven't see it.

Basic rule, if you don't know how to game a system, you probably just don't know enough about that system yet. All systems that manage humans have fraud and gaming in them, its more a question as to what the rate of gaming the system is. And for salespeople, in my experience its a very high rate of gaming.

--
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Re:Because they see the money by Ryanrule · 2017-09-12 10:45 · Score: 1

Yeah bullshit. I've seen sales sell things that cost the company money, yet they get the bonus and the Hawaii trip. Fuck sales.
Re:Because they see the money by Pinky's+Brain · 2017-09-12 11:09 · Score: 1

If they were truly cautious they wouldn't be talking to a confidence trickster, they'd ask to talk to engineers.
They are sold one-off to very hesitant buyers.
Re:Because they see the money by Darinbob · 2017-09-12 14:02 · Score: 1

I was at a place that sold business software. I was seriously underpaid but I was hungry and this was the first job offer after leaving school. There are literally Ferrari's in the parking lot though, most belong to sales. We had a cheap product that we sold for a ton of money. After I left I sort of learned that despite being crap, the competition was actually worse. The sales people were selling features that didn't exist, and one even admitted doing it, and they do it because they're caught up in all the sales fervour and dollar bills are dancing in their vision. One time in three years, and one time only, one of the Ferrari driving guys bought a single large pizza for the developers.
Re:Because they see the money by Bender0x7D1 · 2017-09-13 00:14 · Score: 1

People who have a knack for sales aren't everyone but they aren't uncommon like those with the raw capacity to learn to be talented in STEM.
I think your bias is showing through. A good sales person is RARE and not only doesn't make the process painful, but makes it ENJOYABLE. In fact, they make it so enjoyable, and make you feel like you got such a good deal, that you look forward to going back - sooner than planned.

--
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Re:Because they see the money by nine-times · 2017-09-13 01:59 · Score: 1

In this case, its about promising the impossible and giving away freebies on the backend to make up for it.
That only works if you give your salespeople the discretion to give away freebies.
Re:Because they see the money by shaitand · 2017-09-13 03:19 · Score: 1

Rare? Hardly. I suppose there are really lonely people out there who follow this methodology. Me, I tend to buy a stapler because I need to bind paper together. It doesn't matter how friendly the sales guy was, I'm not going to buy more staplers than I need. Office depot has better and more friendly sales people than Amazon's non-existent sales staff but Amazon crushes them because they have better marketing, they are more convenient, and they are cheaper.
Re:Because they see the money by ebvwfbw · 2017-09-13 04:17 · Score: 1

Some of it is obnoxious though. Take when AOL went with SGI years ago. That sales chick through NO effort on her part received 10s of millions of dollars in her "commission". WTF? It was so much that they cut her territory down to just AOL. It was like winning the lottery for her. What about all the other people at SGI that made that possible? NOTHING! No money for them from that!
I didn't work for SGI, I was working in Northern Virginia when it happened and it made a lot of people mad. Inside and well outside of the company.

Sounds like whining to me by mamono · 2017-09-12 04:48 · Score: 2

Just another example of stodgy people trying to hold on to antiquated business models. I agree people should be compensated for their work. However, there is a plethora of available information out there now. I heavily research most everything I buy and already know what I want when I come in to the store. By the time I pick my product I'm more interested in the best price.

Re:Sounds like whining to me by HornWumpus · 2017-09-12 05:00 · Score: 1

And is going to be disappointed as I'm just 'showrooming' his employer. Internet vendors, not having to pay commish will almost always have the best price. Shipping is covered by no sales tax.

--
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Re:Sounds like whining to me by barc0001 · 2017-09-12 05:38 · Score: 1

> I heavily research most everything I buy and already know what I want when I come in to the store.
Great, you, I and many people like us all do that. What about the other 90% of the population? Many people buy many things they know little or nothing about in part because they have no idea how to do that research themselves. That's the segment of the market that salespeople are useful for. And many of those salespeople are experts in the application of their product, especially in niche stores. You walk into a high end store looking for a suit, the salesperson is going to be able to tell you what will look better on you than you will, guaranteed.
Re:Sounds like whining to me by barc0001 · 2017-09-12 05:43 · Score: 2

> 'showrooming' his employer. Internet vendors, not having to pay commish will almost always have the best price
Some day we will be trading inconveniences and costs. Already starting to see it. With companies like Wayfair, it's practically impossible to get a feel for what their products are like in reality, so while it's nice they have free shipping, if that couch you order from them isn't comfortable or clashes with the rug or whatever and you want to exchange it, you still need to box it back up and arrange shipping back. How much of your time will be eaten by that? And if it's a straight return, you pay shipping.
Many times I don't mind going to a brick and mortar store for something when I can pick it up/sit on it and then walk out the door with it. Even if it means a premium over online, I get it today, and I know if there's a problem it won't be a massive production to deal with.
Re:Sounds like whining to me by JohnFen · 2017-09-12 06:01 · Score: 1

That's the segment of the market that salespeople are useful for.
That's the segment that salespeople will heavily exploit. Commissioned salespeople will exploit them even more energetically.
Re:Sounds like whining to me by barc0001 · 2017-09-12 06:07 · Score: 1

Sure, but what's the alternative? People buying shit at random and hoping for the best?
Re:Sounds like whining to me by shaitand · 2017-09-12 06:57 · Score: 1

Absolutely and you seem really well informed on your choice of phone. But hey, did you know they developed a new type of case that will never break and are on sale for $10 vs $20? And we match those other guys price PLUS you can get a $300 smart watch on a promo right now for $5 if you get a $30 microsd card with your phone and you need one anyway right? Oh hey, did you know the manufacturer warranty doesn't cover the screen? You did need a screen protector ($10), right? Oh and a protection plan because water damage isn't covered either. Oh and if you do it as a package we'll give you that phone for just $200 instead of $399 with a 2 yr commitment.

$250 today.
$2765 total = $10+$5+$30+$200+$480($20/mo because the smart watch requires an additional line)+$1920($80*24 contract)+$120($5mo protection plan)

If you'd done it on your own you'd have paid $720 $399 + $30/mo + $10 screen protector and case and probably never wanted or needed the microsd card or watch.

$409 today
$720 total = $399 + $30/mo + $10

Of course that assume they didn't get you for VR headgear, service add-ons, chargers, etc.

Having sales people hasn't lost all point in all industries. The industries where those people should be paid commissions on the size of the deal are getting fewer and farther between.
Re:Sounds like whining to me by shaitand · 2017-09-12 06:59 · Score: 1

"Shipping is covered by no sales tax."

You mean back in the day where the best prices weren't found at like 3 mega sites who all charge sales tax in pretty much every state?
Re:Sounds like whining to me by Rakarra · 2017-09-12 07:22 · Score: 1

Just another example of stodgy people trying to hold on to antiquated business models. I agree people should be compensated for their work. However, there is a plethora of available information out there now. I heavily research most everything I buy and already know what I want when I come in to the store. By the time I pick my product I'm more interested in the best price.
The submission is desperately trying to justify a business model that customers actually hate and work counter to their interest. We're not likely to buy that shit, but the VC is certainly trying as hard as he can to argue that everyone from the customer to the employee is actually happier with the sales commission model. Here's the reality:
Employees hate the sales commission model, because your 'employees compete with each other' leads to a low salary, high stress job for the salesperson.
Customers detest the sales commission model, because they know employees are there with a "sell at any cost" mindset. They financially benefit directly from each sale, which is a true conflict of interest with what the customer wants the most: getting good advice to be able to pick out the product that they really need, or even no product at all. Your commissioned salesman is a lot less likely to admit that the products they have won't meet the customer's need.
Upper management likes the sales commission model because it means the employees work for less money, and they're undercutting each other far more than the "political" model that the blurb says everyone hates and is inferior, meaning there's less of a chance for them to organize, to actually get a stable salary and stability in life. Keep the employees busy working against each other, and they won't help each other.
Re:Sounds like whining to me by HornWumpus · 2017-09-12 07:51 · Score: 1

100% discount!

--
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Re:Sounds like whining to me by sfcat · 2017-09-12 10:05 · Score: 1

Sure, but what's the alternative? People buying shit at random and hoping for the best?
Sure, its essentially what we have now anyway. And it would encourage people to get better at researching products which will over time improve engineering and product quality.

--
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Re:Sounds like whining to me by HornWumpus · 2017-09-12 10:55 · Score: 2

The worse the product they sell, the higher the commish as a % of gross.
I don't know of any industry that pays commish anywhere near what the boneyards pay plot salesmen. About 25% of gross for plots, up to about 60% for the truly stupid shit like mausoleums and bronze caskets.
The successful plot peddlers make seven figures, selling at 'retail'. Most goto 3 or 4 church services every sunday, that's where the chumps congregate.

--
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Re:Sounds like whining to me by HornWumpus · 2017-09-12 10:57 · Score: 1

Buying at random or buying the garbage the salespeople are incentivized to move?
Neither gets you what you need.
If you need advice, find someone you can trust.

--
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Re:Sounds like whining to me by Darinbob · 2017-09-12 14:08 · Score: 1

Yes, and you won't see a typical sales person. The article is talking about selling products to an organization (a company, hospital, government, charity, social club, etc). They don't walk into the local computer store to buy a networking solution, and they don't shop online for a payroll system, and they don't search Amazon for new drug delivery system, and they don't head to Crazy Freddy's Auto Emporium to buy a fleet of delivery vehicles. Even for consumer goods, they're most oftennot being sold to individuals, they're being sold to stores, chains of stores, big box stores, etc.

a16z looks like a junk site by xxxJonBoyxxx · 2017-09-12 04:49 · Score: 4, Informative

The source of the paid article is a16z.com, which sounds like a phishing site but it's actually some crappy VC's blog.

Re:a16z looks like a junk site by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-12 05:52 · Score: 1

If Slashdot is going to start posting paid shill articles, the least they could do is mark it as such.

Re:Must? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-12 04:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

So you subscribe to the 'if you build it, they will come' philosophy? Good luck with that.

Like other commissions by sanf780 · 2017-09-12 04:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

How about we compare sales commissions to a common one in the US that is paying the waiters and waitress with tips? After all, the costumer is paying either directly through tips or through sales commissions. I imagine it will put a lot of stress not to have a steady income like I have. Also, I do not get hefty bonuses either.

Re:Like other commissions by drinkypoo · 2017-09-12 05:15 · Score: 1

This is the ideal example. There are restaurants even in the USA which do not permit tipping. But in order to retain employees in such an environment, you have to offer them something else, like decent pay and maybe even benefits.
If you pay salespeople sufficiently, then you can probably retain them. But then again, if your competitor is offering a percentage of the action... I'd say competition for the most competent sales people is half the reason why you have to pay salespeople a commission. The other is that lots of them will wine and dine on your dollar if you don't tie their compensation directly to their performance.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Like other commissions by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-12 05:36 · Score: 1

And how exactly would it be lawfull to prohibit tipping?
When I worked (on minimum wages) in a bar, I usually made more money from tips than from the wage.
And in Europe as a part time worker you hardly get more than minimum wage. To have a decent (not big, nut ok) wake you need to be sallary employes. And even then, no one has any leverage about tips. The worst that can happen is that the tips are pooled, shared with the kitchen and guys on the tap, and redistributed to the 'walking force'.
That a boss can deny employees to accept tips is absurd, what a fucked up country you live in, it makes me sad ...

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Like other commissions by Gilgaron · 2017-09-12 05:41 · Score: 1

Same deal all over, pretty much any "all inclusive" resort or cruise is going to have a policy to fire staff that accept tips.
Re:Like other commissions by thegarbz · 2017-09-12 06:14 · Score: 1

And in Europe
As in Europe the country? Which part of Europe is that, that bit in the middle where it's customary to tip 10%, that bit a few hundred km in one direction where it's customary to tip just enough to not get spare change, or that bit a few hundred km in the other direction where people are paid a living wage and tips are not only unheard of, you get strange looks if you offer them usually followed by getting your change back.
Re:Like other commissions by shaitand · 2017-09-12 07:05 · Score: 1

"But then again, if your competitor is offering a percentage of the action..."

They'll stop the moment their major competitor isn't doing so because not paying that commission means you you can take the difference as profit and beat them on the stock market or undercut their prices aggressively thus increasing sales while maintaining the same profit margin which increases profits and beats them on the stock market (stock price is what companies care about, not profits).

This is how every major industry works and why you get burned in more or less the same ways by all the major "competitors" as a consumer. You get the same result as active collusion and monopoly behavior without need for any of it because the competitors in a given industry have common interests.
Re:Like other commissions by jader3rd · 2017-09-12 07:52 · Score: 1

And how exactly would it be lawfull to prohibit tipping?
Worker protections. When tipping exists, employers can abuse employees by offering criminally low wages. In addition, it's false advertising as it misrepresents the cost of the product/service. If gratuity was made illegal, employers would have to pay their employees better wages, and in addition, prices would reflect the real cost of the product.
Re:Like other commissions by stephanruby · 2017-09-12 07:53 · Score: 1

Companies will only pay sales commissions because they have to. I've seen a mortgage company try replacing its sales staff that with much cheaper salaried employees, but the salaried employees completely failed to sell anything during a peak market (probably because those salaried employees were too afraid to break the law with the puny salaries they received).
On the other hand, when Kinkos decided to stop paying commission to its sales force, all the enterprise relationships had already been established by that sales force, so Kinkos didn't lose a cent cutting them out. Plus, Kinkos didn't even need to pay them unemployment benefits because their base salary was something like $8 an hour, so it just transferred them to work in their shops until they'd quit on their own (those sales people later sued, but lost).
If we compare this to the job of waiters and waitresses, it's the same underlying principle. If restaurants could keep the tips for themselves without increasing wages, they would. Or if restaurants could avoid using waiters and waitresses altogether, they would.
Re:Like other commissions by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-13 07:37 · Score: 1

Sorry, don't get your words.
What has tipping to do with wages?
And prices?
The price is on the menu, either it includes VAT, or it goes extra. Either it includes service or not.
Tips have nothing to do with that.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Like other commissions by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-13 07:41 · Score: 1

I never heard about such nonsense.
I give tips everywhere.
Why would you fire one who got tips? It is obviously one of the better workers, otherwise he would not get the tips, sounds plain stupid.
Considering that the USA not so long ago did not pay waitresses but they had to rely on tips as 'income' I really wonder where that attitude/impression is coming from.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Like other commissions by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-13 07:46 · Score: 1

Germany, and we don't have 10% rule.
That is an american thing.
I round up to the next or second next Euro, only in case we are plenty of people and I pay for all, I give an about 5% tip, sometimes more.
Anyway, interfering with tipping is illegal. If a customer pays tips to the "host" that is his own decision and it is a privilege of the "host" to accept it.
Contracts about tips would be void, getting fired for accepting tips would be a slaughter for the employer in court.
No idea why you live in a fucked up country with fucked up laws and even think that your way of doing it is 'normal' or 'natural' way of doing it.
If one here would be so stupid to say loud: I fired her/him, because she/he accepted tips, he basically can close his business.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Like other commissions by david_thornley · 2017-09-13 09:46 · Score: 1

Employees work for money. If the customers tip more, the restaurant can get by with paying them less. The IRS will assume a certain minimum number of tips, and servers owe income tax on that.
Most places in the US expect tips, and hence servers are seriously underpaid if not tipped. If you do tip, that's money you paid for that meal that wasn't included in the price on the menu.

--
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Re:Like other commissions by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-13 10:29 · Score: 1

You want to tell me, if the restaurant owner knows people give tips, because they like the nice face/ass of the waitress he starts to reduce the wage?
And how should that work? Hu? He writes in a newspaper: seeking service people, paying only 5$ instead of the usual 9$ because instead of the usually 10$ tips per hour you get 20$ here, because of your nice face and you are working your ass off?
Sorry, your economics 101 is not working, In comparable establishments the prices for meals are the same and the wages for employees are the same.
Tips have nothing to do with that.
If you do tip, that's money you paid for that meal that wasn't included in the price on the menu.
No, it is a gratitude for a service well done.
If I have to wait for attendance, for the bill for what ever, if he/she is un polite: no tips.
That has nothing to do with the price on the menu. You Sir, are an idiot.
But, fetch me a job where I'm not 'allowed' to receive tips, and get fired because of receiving them. I will sue the owner of the establishment into oblivion, just for the fun of it.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Like other commissions by jader3rd · 2017-09-13 12:44 · Score: 1

You want to tell me, if the restaurant owner knows people give tips,...he starts to reduce the wage?
Yes, 100%. Well documented, and well known. That's why in the US restaurant owners are allowed to pay wages less than minimum wage.
Re:Like other commissions by Gilgaron · 2017-09-13 13:57 · Score: 1

For the "all inclusive" resorts, part of the relaxing atmosphere is that you don't have to carry money with you. If tipping was allowed then you'd end up tipping for better service instead of just always getting the best service. After dealing with the borderline aggressive solicitation for tips elsewhere in the Caribbean it does actually feel more relaxing not dealing with any of it.
Re:Like other commissions by thegarbz · 2017-09-13 18:38 · Score: 1

No idea why you live in a fucked up country with fucked up laws and even think that your way of doing it is 'normal' or 'natural' way of doing it.
Huh? Maybe check who you're talking to. There's more than two people on Slashdot. I live in a country where tipping is both legal and never done since people generally earn a living wage and we don't play with pointless cash.
You should direct that comment to drinkypoo. I'm just pointing out that the EU isn't one country, and within the EU there are widely varying customs when it comes to tipping and paying for services, the least favourite of mine being "service charges" listed on the bill (looking at you Eastern Europe)
Re:Like other commissions by david_thornley · 2017-09-14 03:48 · Score: 1

Sorry, your economics 101 is not working, In comparable establishments the prices for meals are the same and the wages for employees are the same.

My economics is fine. People typically work to get money (we'll leave volunteer work out of this). Suppose a server is going to earn $3K/month. Does it matter how much of that is salary and how much is tips?
In comparable establishments in the US, the prices for meals are similar, and you're expected to leave similar tips. The wages for employees will be similar, and the wages for people who get tips will be lower compared to people who don't get tips.

No, it is a gratitude for a service well done.

Not in the US, it isn't. You seem to fail to understand that. In the US, servers are expected to get tips, and diners are expected to provide tips. These are normally based on the cost of the meal times a certain fraction. A server must report a certain amount of tip income or justify it to the Internal Revenue Service. Restaurant operators pay servers less than you'd expect for the job, because they're expected to make it up on tips. There are special minimum wage laws for servers.
I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it's how it works in the US.

That has nothing to do with the price on the menu. You Sir, are an idiot.

In the US, it does. Add 15-20% to the menu price to get the expected tip amount. Vary from there, depending on service. I'm a citizen and resident of the USA; you'll have to decide for yourself whether that qualifies as being an idiot.

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Re:Like other commissions by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-14 09:04 · Score: 1

The wages for employees will be similar, and the wages for people who get tips will be lower compared to people who don't get tips.
Sorry, I doubt that.
Who would work under such circumstances?
In the EU you would only get illegal workers to take such jobs.
I'm a citizen and resident of the USA; you'll have to decide for yourself whether that qualifies as being an idiot.
Well, no an literal idiot, but idiots that you accept such "laws".
In Germany tips are even tax free, no idea about the rest of Europe, though.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Like other commissions by david_thornley · 2017-09-15 07:32 · Score: 1

Suppose you're willing to work as a server for $20/hour. The restaurant owner could pay you $20/hour, or if you expect to make $12/hour in tips, the owner could get away with paying you $10/hour. Tell me why these circumstances are so undesirable. You get roughly the same competition. Some nights you're stiffed and some you collect unusually generous tips. It's not like you can go across the street and get a $20/hour job doing the same thing (assuming you're working in the same class of restaurant), because all the restaurant owners work the same way. You could get a $15/hour job, but it wouldn't come with tips. You could ask to be paid $15/hour as a server, and unless you were unusually good, nobody would hire you.

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Re:Like other commissions by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-15 09:27 · Score: 1

Suppose you're willing to work as a server for $20/hour. The restaurant owner could pay you $20/hour, or if you expect to make $12/hour in tips, the owner could get away with paying you $10/hour.
No he would not, at least not in Europe.
I would politely decline his offer.
You could get a $15/hour job, but it wouldn't come with tips.
Of course it would. Because if my customers give me tips, I accept them.
If the restaurant owner fired me, I sue him. Simple, in Europe at least.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Like other commissions by david_thornley · 2017-09-18 05:47 · Score: 1

Okay, we've established that you lack clue zero point zero zero one about how restaurant pay works in the US. I'm not surprised it's different in at least some European countries. However, you do not seem to realize that money is, in fact, fungible, and an income stream that consists of wages and tips is, in fact, an income stream.

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes

Motivation by Thyamine · 2017-09-12 04:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

Isn't it really just about motivation? Every role has different motivation. Some benefit from additional compensation. Think about bonuses for meeting certain goals, or for being utilized a certain percentage of the quarter, or make a certain number of sales. A good organization understands what motivates their employees and matches it to business needs. Would it be great if we could all just be paid a nice wage, do our jobs well, and go home? Sure. But there are people who will slack and do the absolute least, and there are people who will see a bonus/commission/etc as a great objective to shoot for.

Coming from an engineer background, I think we often harass sales people since they are the non-technical ones in our teams, but we all have our own version of this.

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I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria

Re:Motivation by tomhath · 2017-09-12 05:13 · Score: 1

Isn't it really just about motivation?
No, it's about metrics. You can't reliably measure how much value most engineers or teachers add to an organization. But good salesmen are like star athletes.
Re:Motivation by Thyamine · 2017-09-12 05:39 · Score: 1

They go hand in hand. Everyone has metrics to measure their performance. Those metrics are used for compensation for some roles. In bad situations those metrics are subjective or poorly chosen. Hopefully they are well chosen, with good milestones, and not arbitrary (lines of code) or subjective (you didn't try hard enough).

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I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
Re:Motivation by shaitand · 2017-09-12 07:07 · Score: 1

"and there are people who will see a bonus/commission/etc as a great objective to shoot for"

Sure, but you can tie a variable salary or bonus to performance for sales without paying out massive commissions scaled to the deal. In reality marketing is doing more to bring you those sales than the actual sales people.
Re:Motivation by shaitand · 2017-09-12 07:16 · Score: 1

"No, it's about metrics. You can't reliably measure how much value most engineers or teachers add to an organization. But good salesmen are like star athletes."

Bogus metrics. Star athletes are rare. Pretty much anyone with social skills and poor ethical radar has the talent to qualify as a sales star. The problem with sales goals and commissions is they credit the salesman with the sale. The top sales people simply didn't fuck up the first few deals, so were given bigger leads and/or had those first few clients dedicated to them, which means law of averages their sales figures were higher, the higher they move up the warmer the leads get like big dedicated accounts buying more of what they need or other big accounts referred by people on those accounts or over lunch with contacts on those accounts. Tada. Rockstar sales guy with great numbers that put the other sales guys to shame... except none of it had anything to do with some special talent unique to that guy.
Re:Motivation by Altrag · 2017-09-12 08:40 · Score: 1

You could put the same argument toward the star athletes though -- they get some early goals so they get played more giving them more chance to score goals in future and so on.
Being a professional athlete in general obviously takes enormous amounts of practice, talent, skill and simple willpower. But the biggest difference between the "star" of a team and the next guy in line is often just the amount of play time. Sure there are exceptions where the star is truly leaps and bounds above everyone else not only on the team but in the entire league, but that also applies in sales as well.
Re:Motivation by Altrag · 2017-09-12 08:47 · Score: 1

That depends entirely on your business. For consumer-facing products that are marketed in brochures, giant in-store billboards, TV spots, internet ads, etc then sure -- the marketing has done the lion's share of the work and the salesperson is really just trying to sell you extended warranties and other add-ons. Of course, their commissions tend to reflect that fact (so they might get a decent percent commission on an extended warranty, but a small or zero commission on the base product.)
With the push-back against junk add-ons like extended warranties though, we're starting to see box stores like that advertise that they're not commission-based. Of course instead they replace it with monthly quotas which are just as bad if not worse and less visible to the customer.
But for non-consumer products.. typically there is no advertising. Sales people just cold call until they find someone who might be interested (obviously they don't make blind calls -- they know what their product is for and try to identify people who at least would have a use for it before wasting their time making a call!) In that type of scenario, the salespeople are often the only form of marketing involved beyond maybe a trade show booth (usually run by the same sales people anyway) or the occasional magazine ad but nothing on the scale of consumer-level advertising.
Re:Motivation by aktw · 2017-09-12 09:44 · Score: 1

It doesn't work that way in practice. All you end up doing is getting people to game the metrics needed for their commission, often at the expense of both the customer and their company itself through returns or bad experiences. A pretty interesting comparison is CompUSA vs Best Buy about 10-15 years ago. CompUSA did the sales commission route, including a heavy push on "TAP" (their cover-everything extended warranty). The best sales associates made bank by abusing the system, pushing products that customers didn't really need, and figuring out ways to process returns under another person's account (so it didn't count against their sales). Best Buy was across the street, didn't pay commission, didn't push warranties (offered, but not pushed), and there were no metrics for the employees to fuck around with in order to get their commissions. I worked for both, and it's absolutely no shock that CompUSA struggled for years before finally closing shop.
Re:Motivation by shaitand · 2017-09-13 03:04 · Score: 1

Sure, but we look at more statistics with regard to athletes. Look at baseball, we look don't just look at the total number of hits a batter gets or home runs, we look at how likely the batter is to hit a run when at bat to determine their batting average. Getting more opportunities will increase your at bats but won't increase your hits when at bat except in the sense of getting more practice but you can do that outside the game. You don't just get a position on a baseball team, get a few lucky hits and have your play time increased. You go through several layers of lower level teams first and had to be that exceptional person who truly leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else, including the "stars" of other teams at all those levels. At the lower level teams you don't get more playtime as the star. And your stats count for the same amount as the people you play against for every achievement.

The comparison breaks down very quickly with sales. Comparing to a batter for instance, in order to correct for assigning clients after a single successful at bat with a pitcher every time that opposing pitcher comes up from then on the pitcher has to be paired with that same batter and signal the batter on what they are going to pitch. Also, the pitcher has to choose the slowest and easiest pitches and either be neutral to or prefer the batter hit the pitch because he needs someone to hit his pitches. Also, we need to assign the pitchers scores based on how many pitches they throw a season (to account for size of client and deal) and build a total, every time a batter hits the ball he gets the pitchers score added to his score.
Re:Motivation by Altrag · 2017-09-14 18:07 · Score: 1

Most people don't just jump into the #1 sales job at the biggest companies either -- they start at the bottom as well just like baseball players.
Basically, you say there's no single number that matters in baseball, and then you lay out the single most important number: batting average. That's the one that everyone talks about, and its the primary measure of how good you are at batting, and thus how likely the coach is to put you on the plate.
Or take hockey. If you score a high number of goals, of course you'll get played more. But if you score few goals while getting a high number of assists, you'll also get played more because the metric they use isn't "number of goals" its "number of goals+assists" and maybe a few other factors like interceptions and whatnot.
To bring it back to sales.. would they benefit from a metric beyond pure "total dollars?" Probably.
Customer satisfaction (measured by say, the number of return customers) may be something they look at. Some places probably track any interaction the customer has with the operation and thus could reward "assists" rather than just closes. Or track support calls later if you're in a business that has such so that you can get a long-term measurement of the sales' overall profit rather than just the immediate amount that might be lost to future costs. And so on. And I'm sure some places do these things (and likely things I've never thought of) because they're not stupid and in many (maybe most) cases, sales is a team effort.
There are exceptions of course. Real estate for example is usually a situation where the customer deals with a single realtor from start to finish. There's not really any "assists" involved, there's no future costs (once the sale is made and finalized, they're done with you unless there's something horrific enough gone wrong to prompt like lawsuits or something) and for most sales, there won't be any repeat business in the short term as most people don't buy and sell houses too often (and most of the ones that do have their own system in place). There's really no other metric needed beyond "how many houses did they sell?"
But if you're a sales rep for say, Coca-Cola.. you're looking at long-terms sales with (hopefully) repeat business on a weekly or monthly basis. You have to keep your customers happy over the long term, deal with the occasional "support" issue if there was a damaged crate or something, have a backup sales person to cover when you're on holidays and so forth. In those scenarios there's plenty of metrics to work with beyond just the flat dollar amount of the initial close.

Re:Must? by Immerman · 2017-09-12 04:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

It's certainly a lot more beneficial to the customer in almost all situations...

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--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.

Even a "Sale" means different things, complicated by Faizdog · 2017-09-12 04:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

I once worked at a medical diagnostics startup where I got a really interesting view into the world of sales. I was the technical individual responsible for training the sales team ( I knew the tech and was good at explaining it in laymans terms). I also went out with them on sales calls. Very different from what my real job was, but I learned a lot about a different world.

In any case, these observations are obviously limited to that particular experience, but I think can generalize.

The sales people had territories. There was also always fighting about what was in which territory, if you had a major cancer center in your area, you had more chance to be successful.

Now a "sale" was when a doctor ordered our medical test. The sales people had commissions on those sales, and the plans changed over the years, but usually there were tiers, 0-X tests, commission is one number, X-Y tests sold, different (I think higher but forget) commission, etc.

Now what does it mean for a test to be sold. Is it simply that the doctor ordered the test and their staff sent in the form to our lab?

We were trying to get reimbursement with insurance companies worked out. What if we didn't get reimbursed on that test? It's a loss for the company, but the sales person sold it, their job is done, reimbursement is a separate departement. What if though the reason we couldn't get reimbursed is because the test is not very useful clinically for the patient, but the doctor ordered anyway because they were friends with the sales person, or she was very pretty? Now it's a potentially bogus sale.

What if it's a legit sale, and clinically valid, but the patient's sample due to some wetlab processing issues can't have our assay run on it, so we don't make money?

What if we get the order form for a "sale" but never the actual specimen? Is it still a sale?

We spent months and years dealing with these and other issues. It was always very complicated, especially since we were a startup in a somewhat new area, so all the rules or "industry standards" were defined.

Again, very specific to our situation, but provides an example of how a "sale" has different definitions, and sales people want their commissions.

For another, say software product, a sales person may sell, but there is a 3 month evaluation window. They could argue hey I got the foot in the door, I did my job. You make a sucky product and the client won't keep it, or our customer reps can't improve service. For the company, that's not a true "sold" product bringing in revenue, but the sales person did the job they had.

At the end, our startup went out of the business, partially due to the fact we spent A LOT of money on sales commissions for orders, some which were invalid or our reimbursement team couldn't get insurance to pay for.

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-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-

Greed is King by crashumbc · 2017-09-12 05:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

Sales commissions are used to breakdown moral conventions using greed. A person might not be willing to normally lie to a client or sell them some shit they don't need. But once they get used to the bonuses, they'll do anything to keep them coming in.

Re:Greed is King by Darinbob · 2017-09-12 14:20 · Score: 1

This depends on the industry and the type of product or service sold. If it's a generic sort of product and the sales person doesn't need to be an expert at it, they'll like more often because they can get another sales job somewhere else. Some of these sales people do a lot of job hopping, and they've got no notions about company loyalty or believing in the product. A specialized sales person, such as medical sales, is less likely to lie because the job market is smaller and continued sales are more important for their commision, and also because the buyer is much more knowledgeable and will spot lies more easily.
Sometimes though lying isn't lying. When a feature is sold that doesn't exist, then you browbeat the development team to add that feature, the CEO or VPs will get into the act trying to get that sale to go through and also insist that the development team put everything on hold to get the feature done.
Sometimes the money is big enough that the bosses get into the lying game too, especially with fudging numbers on the books. I had a former CEO and sales VP and corporate lawyer end up in federal prison. (and the company won an Ignobel award for adapting the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers for use in the business world)
Re:Greed is King by cbeaudry · 2017-09-12 23:40 · Score: 1

You don't sell when you are not hungry.
I dont want sleazy sales men on my team, but I do want ambitious, hungry human beings who will go out there and hustle.
They are paid on profits though, not revenue. This prevents them from making slimeball deals and hurting the company in the long run.

Depends on the product by DaveSewhuk · 2017-09-12 05:01 · Score: 1

Commissions are only good for short term goals. They will encourage immediate sales vs better long term sales. Say a project takes 2 years to get going with a 5 year ramp up make 100x over the lifetime of project verses a 1 year short project that makes 1x for two years. The commission guy will pick the short term return vs better long term. Same with the idiot MBA CEOs focusing on next quarter vs the next decade.

Re:Depends on the product by Daetrin · 2017-09-12 06:08 · Score: 1

I confess that i am not intimately familiar with how commissions and compensation works for sales people, but the sales people i work with seem quite excited when they make long term deals. I'm guessing they either get commission on the entire thing up front or get follow-on commissions each year that the company remains a customer.

They also seem quite interested in how our long term projects are doing. Either they have a professional interest in the projects they sold doing well (and commissions aside, the higher-ups would probably get pissed off at a sales person who got us committed to too many projects that went south) or they're counting on either ongoing commissions or new commissions when the company re-ups.

So in short (hah) if your sales people are more focused on short term profits than long term profits that means you've structured your incentives incorrectly, not that the idea of incentivizing them is wrong

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Re:Depends on the product by Strider- · 2017-09-12 09:44 · Score: 1

Well, yes and no. In a previous job, I was the primary after sales support and training Engineer for the company. The end result is that I built a very strong relationship with a number of our customers. Part of the role of our sales people was to build and maintain those relationships because, well, it's always easier to sell something to a happy, existing customer than it is to build a new relationship. In the industry I was in, the smallest sale we usually made was in the low six figures, and we made fair margin on each sale.
The thing that annoyed me, though, is often I did a significant amount of work to get the sale... Heck, in more than a few occasions, the customer would come to me and say "We've found an extra 400,000 euros in our budget, how should we improve our system?" it always kind of annoyed me that even when I was managing a significant portion of the relationship, and coming up with the ideas, and being that "Trusted Advisor" to the customer, I didn't get a slice of the pie.

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...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...

Re:Must? by fustakrakich · 2017-09-12 05:02 · Score: 2

But sales isn't about what's more beneficial to the customer, unless it increases, um, sales...

--
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”

LinkedIn looks different today by dstyle5 · 2017-09-12 05:03 · Score: 1

I guess MS decided to go with a retro look today, green to represent the commissions part of the story? #slownewsday

Re:LinkedIn looks different today by cdreimer · 2017-09-12 05:06 · Score: 2

Of course, it's a slow news day. Everyone is watching the Apple press event. Expect a flood of stories after the event.
Re:LinkedIn looks different today by dstyle5 · 2017-09-12 05:27 · Score: 1

Not that slow, J.J. Abrams signed on to direct Episode IX today. I think that is much more relevant to Slashdot's readers than the sales guy commission 101 post.
Re:LinkedIn looks different today by cdreimer · 2017-09-12 05:32 · Score: 2

Not that slow, J.J. Abrams signed on to direct Episode IX today.
I was hoping the George Lucas would direct Episode IX and have Jar-Jar come out of carbonite to bring balance to the Force. :P
Re:LinkedIn looks different today by cdreimer · 2017-09-12 06:14 · Score: 1

I was hoping that part of the deal that creimer made with /. management would limit the number of shitposts/amazon spam he could make a day...
I was hoping that my merry band of wanker trolls would stop the daily shitposting of my comments. Oh, well. No good deed goes unpunished on Slashdot.
Re:LinkedIn looks different today by cdreimer · 2017-09-12 06:30 · Score: 1

How did you manage to get a merry band of wanker trolls?
By pwning them, of course.
Re:LinkedIn looks different today by cdreimer · 2017-09-12 06:44 · Score: 1

This isn't fair! I want a merry band of wanker trolls too!
1) Be fat, happy and successful.
2) Submit stories and comment frequently.
3) Ignore trolling comments whenever possible.
4) ...
5) Profit!
Re:LinkedIn looks different today by cdreimer · 2017-09-12 07:21 · Score: 1

Jesus, what exactly happened six months ago?
An asshat falsely accused me of threatening to shoot him in a political discussion and things rapidly escalated from there.

creimer was here for years before, after all.
I wrote ~8,000 comments in ten years.

Did he do something especially obnoxious or offputting?
I wrote ~4,000 comments this year.

Another option is to build a quasi-religion. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-12 05:05 · Score: 1

Another option when it comes to generating hype, but without really paying anyone much, is to build a quasi-religion around a product. This is often a good option when a product is mediocre.

Two examples I can think of are the git version control system and the Rust programming language.

Git is a pretty unremarkable VCS. In fact, it downright sucks in many ways. Anyone who has used Mercurial or Bazaar will know how inferior git is compared to them. But the main advantage git has going for it is the quasi-religious like following it has. There are fanatics who worship it, regardless of how flawed it is. They're so closed-minded that they can't even conceive of trying any other VCS. What's the end result? A lot of software development teams are forced to endure a pretty bad VCS just because a small number of loud fanatics treat git religiously and will fight to the ends of the Earth to get their way and use it for everything.

Rust is another example. In my opinion it's a convoluted, painful programming language that makes C++ simple to understand and use by comparison. Yet Rust has developed a very fanatical community. They don't see Rust as just another tool in their programming language toolbox. No. Rust has become more like a lifestyle and a religion to its followers than just a tool. Just look at how its adherents respond to legitimate criticism of Rust at online discussion forums like Hacker News and Reddit. They respond with forceful downvoting attacks. They typically refuse to even discuss the language's pitfalls and problems, instead resorting to various types of censorship. That's why Rust can seem more like a religion than a programming language.

In both examples we see the adherents of the quasi-religions that have built up around these products act as a marketing team of sorts, working for free. Now it might not be high quality marketing, but their loud and constant preaching of these products does generate a lot of hype, which can get the attention of managers and others who might not be able to see through the nonsense.

Re:Must? by dclydew · 2017-09-12 05:23 · Score: 1

In the organization I work for, sales are also responsible for a lot. Dealing with contract negotiations and making sure that pre-sales and post-sales are correlated. After that, they are responsible for keeping up with the customer to find new potential uses, catch dissatisfaction before it occurs, get feedback from the customer on new requirements or feature requests....

--
Get a life, not a lifestyle. - Hikem Bey

Re:Must? by DiSKiLLeR · 2017-09-12 05:23 · Score: 1

Exactly this. Sales people aren't needed. Sales people are the scum of the earth.

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You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.

What? by Daetrin · 2017-09-12 05:29 · Score: 1

#1 For people who are confused, i'm pretty sure this is referring to corporate sales where they're trying to convince another corporation to buy their company's product instead of a competing company's product, which is in fact an important job. Not the salespeople at retail stores trying to convince individuals to buy an appliance or get the extended warranty, who can suck it.

#2 I'm usually pretty lenient about such things, but why is this on slashdot? It doesn't seem to have any direct connection to tech and it doesn't really see like something that matters to anyone outside of boardrooms or sales rooms.

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Just Remember by boudie2 · 2017-09-12 05:31 · Score: 1

A-B-C. Always be closing.

Getting paid for being good at your job by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-12 05:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

Most jobs give zero benefits for being good at what you do. Lousy or amazing, your monthly paycheck is identical.

“Peter Gibbons: The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.
Bob Porter: Don't... don't care?
Peter Gibbons: It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime; so where's the motivation? And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.
Bob Slydell: I beg your pardon?
Peter Gibbons: Eight bosses.
Bob Slydell: Eight?
Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled; that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired. ”

Re:Getting paid for being good at your job by aktw · 2017-09-12 09:55 · Score: 2

As a business owner, I've found that most people consider themselves good at what they do -- even if they're not. It's sort of like driving; everyone thinks they are a good driver, and complains about the other drivers around them not using blinkers or going too slow/fast or checking their cell at a light, etc.. Anyway, I don't think that commissions or metrics-based incentives are a great answer for most companies, but I do think we need to adjust this whole "pay me more" attitude that people have in regards to wanting extra incentives for just doing their job. If that's what someone wants, then they need to go start their own business.

Re:Must? by PCM2 · 2017-09-12 05:35 · Score: 1

So you subscribe to the 'if you build it, they will come' philosophy? Good luck with that.

You're confusing sales with marketing.

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Breakfast served all day!

This is a great example of why I avoid salespeople by JohnFen · 2017-09-12 05:52 · Score: 1

This salesdouche says "Prizes and competition are critical to building a healthy sales culture."

If "building a healthy sales culture" means "encourage salespeople to treat the customer as a mark" (as commissions tend to do), then I vote for an unhealthy sales culture.

Do consumers need sales people? by OrangeTide · 2017-09-12 05:54 · Score: 1

Wouldn't I be better off making purchasing decisions in a low-pressure and high-information environment like the Internet? My grocery store does fine without having to have a sales person follow me around and convince me to buy oranges or maple syrup.

Having a sales person does make a business a lot more money, which is why they do it. But as a consumer I need them about as much as I need mosquitoes in the ecosystem. (which is to say, easily replaced and non-vital)

--
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire

Re:Must? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-12 06:00 · Score: 4, Interesting

Really? Why?
Maybe you don't work with sales people. Maybe you just think sales people are like everyone else only with sales tacked on.

You are wrong.

I work with about twenty sales people in the print industry and I wouldn't trust any of them to mail a utility bill for me. Sales acts like a filter for psychosis and only the sick ones remain working. everyone who wants to be ethical heads for the doors sooner or later.

Why is this? I think it's because salespeople are judged mostly on how much money they bring to the firm. Sales guy A is better than Sales gal B because he brings in more money. But that measurement is, believe it or not, subjective and sales people are lying, manipulative bastards. I know one salesman who continually held back reports on some of his sales each until the very last HOUR he could just so the rest of the team would think he was doing worse than he was. Then, at the last moment, he'd spring a couple hundred thousand in contracts and look like the best guy in the shop. He was made the VP of sales for Christ sakes because his numbers were always so much better than everyone else's. Did the others complain? You bet. Did they copy him? Yes.

All's fair in love and sales.

Please don't start with commissions. Sales people should be paid a freaking salary like anyone else. I know for a fact that every one of the sales people in my corporation get a commission on their sales and that every one will negotiate with customers for the highest possible contract amount with the promise that it will never come to that much. The sales person collects commission on the submitted contract, the production plant gets screwed because the sales person helps the client dispute every charge, and the client walks away with a half priced job. Everyone is happy with the exception of the corporation because they can't figure out why the production plants can't meet the estimated costs of production.

Commissioned sales is killing my company.

So, maybe you don't work with sales people. That's okay. I wish I didn't. It would be a nice break from working with Satan's Own Boys Team.

Re:Even a "Sale" means different things, complicat by Kierthos · 2017-09-12 06:10 · Score: 1

I work for a company where, going by scuttlebutt (I'm not in sales), the sales commission structure and policy has changed multiple times over the last few years.

At one point, it was apparently "each sale earns commission" and the sales department was broken into teams, where there would also be a team bonus for most sales.

Now, because of the nature of the product, I think it's something like "the customer still has to have an account six months after the sale" to count as a valid commission. And there's no teams any more, so it's very cutthroat over in sales.

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Mr. Hu is not a ninja.

Re:Must? by NEDHead · 2017-09-12 06:17 · Score: 1

One must know the difference between 'Sales' and 'Marketing'

"Heathy Sales Culture"? by idontgno · 2017-09-12 06:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

I've got your "healthy sales culture" right here. Quantified. Metrics-based. Competitive. The textbook case!

Maybe we can compete to sell the anonymous submitter a fire to die in.

--
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.

Re:"Heathy Sales Culture"? by trawg · 2017-09-12 19:05 · Score: 1

Every sales commission process should be put in front of a bunch of 15yo video gamers to see how they would game the process to their benefit before it is deployed in the real world.
Re:"Heathy Sales Culture"? by slavdude · 2017-09-13 04:54 · Score: 1

I believe there was documentary about this kind of thing a while ago. /snark

Re:Must? by shaitand · 2017-09-12 06:20 · Score: 1

Most sales people do. They don't hit the pavement and generate sales they expect people to come to them when they are interested in what they are selling. The getting people interested part is driven by marketing/advertising/engineers these days and not sales.

Compare a salesman to a pick-up artist who is selling wing man services on one night stands with a celeb. What you are sold on is the idea he is a smooth artist walking into a bar and finding the hottest girls convincing them to ditch the husband they came with and go to the hotel with them instead. What really happens is he goes about his day drinking and cavorting while he carries a phone with the professionally designed tinder profile of the guy he works for loaded he does the swiping on the app, although in some organizations they have people to carry around the phone and swipe for them as well. When a girl swipes right he arranges the location and time for the boss and he goes and gets a couple drinks in her to be sure and takes a blowjob from the girl as a commission and then the boss bangs the girl. Oh, and of course the boss pays for all the drinking and cavorting as well.

Now, as the boss, is the whole process getting you laid more? Of course it is. Is there value in what he's doing? Sure, even though the girl already indicated shes down for a hookup many of them would back out. If he's "good" then his warm-up probably means the deal gets closed more. Does the blowjob give him incentive? Obviously, and the hotter the girl the more motivated he'll be.

So here is the question, How many deals are lost because the girl doesn't like him? Also, that blowjob commission, either you are giving up a blowjob or you are trying to get the girl to give an extra blowjob. A blowjob is a substantial sexual favor. The first question is, does he actually bring enough value with his lubrication efforts to make up for the girls who would follow through if not for the mandatory blowjob especially considering the parts your professionally created celeb profile and assistant are playing in bringing warm leads already? Especially when you consider that these "wingmen" are going to compete to work for the celebs whose profiles bring in the highest quantity of warmest leads so they can get the most blowjobs from the hottest girls. Could you get someone to play his part and provide an incentive far less valuable than blowjobs from hot girls? Couldn't you just pay him a variable salary based on performance? It could range from what that assistant makes to double what that assistant makes.

a good sales engineer is invaluable by k6mfw · 2017-09-12 06:28 · Score: 1

I've not dealt with sales engineers lately, I use this term for sales people that deal primarily with technical products for technical people. I'm thinking back in the days before internet there were some sales engineers that were very helpful, i.e. Jim from HP (back when HP was HP) on instrumentation controllers and he kept me informed of what products will work for me and which ones will not be applicable. At times I wonder how he ever made a profit but then when purchases are made, however, a lot of money was exchanged after a purchase so whatever time Jim spent on the phone, onsite visits, demo of gear, tutoring of use, mailing tech manuals all paid off. That HP gear in the days with Bill and David were with the company was not cheap but it was indestructible.

There were other sales engineers I became more involved with in engineering societies. I learned from them, I'm thinking of Lou Gado (now passed away) on measurement systems and connected me with other product people. These people helped be learn practical application of thermocouples and RTDs. Lots of interesting stories from Lou (he got his start in the Marines during WWII working on radar). So when I need to make purchases, I have their contact info and were the first ones I go to and this saved me lots of time.

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mfwright@batnet.com

Re:Must? by rickb928 · 2017-09-12 06:29 · Score: 1

Which manufacturer?

And, there ya go. Competition.

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.

Re:Must? by rickb928 · 2017-09-12 06:32 · Score: 1

"Most sales people do. They don't hit the pavement and generate sales they expect people to come to them when they are interested in what they are selling. The getting people interested part is driven by marketing/advertising/engineers these days and not sales."

A corollary to this is the adage that the salesperson has to ask five times to get the sale.

Most stop at three.

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.

Re:Must? by war4peace · 2017-09-12 06:34 · Score: 1

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

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...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)

Best buy had non Commission / Commission system by Joe_Dragon · 2017-09-12 06:35 · Score: 1

Best buy had non Commission / Commission system.

As in you get hourly but if you want good hours you need to up sell ripoffs.

circuit city was Commission and then they fired all of the good sales people and replaced them with lower prided ones and sales went down.

Re:Must? by Khyber · 2017-09-12 06:36 · Score: 1

"So you subscribe to the 'if you build it, they will come' philosophy? Good luck with that."

That's how most products have worked, historically.

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Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.

You don't have to.... by mark-t · 2017-09-12 06:38 · Score: 1

You can pay them a salary, or a wage at your option... the only requirement being that it is an amount compliant with local minimum wage laws.

You incentivize the employees to sell as hard as they can in such a case with non-monetary perks for each month, such as the right to pick their own shifts for the upcoming month.

Obviously, employees that fail to sell well enough to justify the expense of paying them are terminated.

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File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'

Re:You don't have to.... by mark-t · 2017-09-12 06:39 · Score: 1

Dangit... I really wish slashdot had an edit button for at least a minute or two after posting. I meant to suggest that such a perk would be for the top seller each month.

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File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'

Re:Must? by ravenshrike · 2017-09-12 07:13 · Score: 1

It wouldn't exactly be difficult to implement a system to stop that though(I can think of three systems off the top of my head), so all it really shows is that the people on top are fugging morons.

Re: Must? by liquid_schwartz · 2017-09-12 07:22 · Score: 1

Not if nobody is aware that the ice cubes are there. Sales serves more of a role than they get credit for in most cases.

We didn't commission. It was good. by Derkec · 2017-09-12 08:51 · Score: 1

In the enterprise software business all sales people are commissioned. Except for the ones we had at my last employer. We recognized that sales is hard, competitive and requires special work. At the same time, the key element that wins a deal might be a developer working all night to sneak a feature into a demo or build a new demo environment.

So why do you pay the sales guy a huge commission check for doing his part and the developer her normal salary if the developer was the one with the heroic effort?

You're best off paying everyone a fair salary and chipping in some bonuses and team celebrations to capture heroics.

Re:We didn't commission. It was good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-12 10:38 · Score: 1

In the enterprise software business all sales people are commissioned. Except for the ones we had at my last employer. We recognized that sales is hard, competitive and requires special work. At the same time, the key element that wins a deal might be a developer working all night to sneak a feature into a demo or build a new demo environment.
So why do you pay the sales guy a huge commission check for doing his part and the developer her normal salary if the developer was the one with the heroic effort?
You're best off paying everyone a fair salary and chipping in some bonuses and team celebrations to capture heroics.
Over the years, I've worked engineering support for many sales teams. I've gotten a bonus/giftcard etc from every company I worked at, directly from those sales teams. Still, they are rare enough that I can remember each one, and none of them would have covered even two hours of a tradesman's overtime.

Traditional sales is done. by ErichTheRed · 2017-09-12 08:52 · Score: 1

If a company is capable of simplifying their product lines enough and delivering a clear advertising, then the traditional sales position is dead. I can't stand talking to salespeople, especially tech salespeople, so that would be a huge positive for me. I've never bought anything based on the recommendation of a salesperson, and don't know people who have. In IT however, CIOs tend to be extremely gullible when it comes to software and hardware sales pitches. It has something to do with all the free dinners and strip club visits, I'm sure.

An interesting example of this hit me when I was attending a tech conference in a big traditional convention center a couple months back. Those convention centers and the conferences themselves are still set up for a previous era, where the only time vendors got new orders was at the annual trade show. I could almost see the lines of eager junior salespeople in identical suits outside the now-dead onsite Kinko's location lining up to fax their orders to HQ. Now, people just order online for all but the most complex products.

Re:Must? by HornWumpus · 2017-09-12 10:46 · Score: 2

Accrued commissions. They only collect as the money is collected from the client.

Alternatively: Chargebacks, but accruals are simpler.

My advice to you: Find a new job. That one will never change. They want you to believe 'it's like this everywhere', don't believe them. I regret waiting so long to bail from a similar situation, many years ago. There is no better time than NOW.

--
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'

Re: Must? by networkBoy · 2017-09-12 11:35 · Score: 1

That's more Marketing than sales...

Related beasts to be sure.

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whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump

Over the years... by erp_consultant · 2017-09-12 12:00 · Score: 1

I have developed a healthy distain for sales people of all shapes and sizes. On the rare occasion where I have met an honest one they rarely last very long. From my viewpoint, the sales subculture is little more than a snake pit. Tell the customer whatever you think they want to hear, whether it is true or not, and make the sale. Get them to sign on the line that is dotted.

After the sale is made they are gone.

Two industries where sale people provide no value whatsoever is cars and homes. Both have legal protections so help keep things the way they are. Car dealers have exclusive arrangements with car manufacturers. Just as Tesla about all the BS they have had to go through trying to break up that tidy little relationship.

Real estate agents have the MLS (or Monopoly Listing System as I like to refer to is as) to hide behind.

It is the classic middle man ploy where the middleman provides no real benefit other than access to the person that has the goods. And in return they get a piece of the action. Now if this person is providing actual value to the transaction then I have no problem paying them for that service but in the case of cars and homes I see them providing little if any value.

Why can't I just go to Ford's website and pick the car and options I want and have them ship it to me? Why can't I just find a house I like - using Zillow or similar tool - contact the seller and agree on a price? Let a lawyer draw up the paper work and call it a day. No middleman needed or wanted.

6% commission for some bimbo to unlock the door and tell me where the kitchen is and the backyard? That's 18K on a 300K house. No thanks. Now granted, the seller pays the commission but it just gets passed on to the buyer in the form of a higher price.

Car salespeople are even worse. In my entire life I have met exactly one honest car salesman. He sold me the car I am still driving today. A few years ago I thought about trading it in but when I found out he was gone I decided just to hang on it.

Re: Must? by Darinbob · 2017-09-12 13:33 · Score: 1

But now you've got 10 different companies offering ice cubes of various kinds. Marketing tells you that ice cubes exist, and maybe lets you know that 5 of those companies are the ones to pay attention to - if you want an ice cube. The sales people are the ones that tell you that yes you want an ice cube, and that you most definitely want an ice cube with a particular company, and the various ice cube options that you can get with it. You may see a marketing person at a ice cube show that you probably won't attend, and you may see marketing literature online, but the sales person will come straight to you desk and demonstrate how nice that ice cube is.

Re:Must? by cbeaudry · 2017-09-12 23:32 · Score: 2

The problem here is not the salespeople but your companies compensation plan.

Commission should be paid on margin, not on revenue. Thats just bonkers.

Re:Even a "Sale" means different things, complicat by cbeaudry · 2017-09-12 23:38 · Score: 1

I never understood compensation plans that did not take into account profit.

Sales commission should be based on profit after expenses.

That takes care of all the problems mentioned above.

Sell a product or project at 35% margin, but turns out at the end to have only generated 22% margin, then your commission is a % of the end profit, not the sales revenue.

Perspective of an SME by bradley13 · 2017-09-13 00:17 · Score: 1

I ran a small software company for a few years, before deciding that I actually hated networking, dealing with customers, etc.. I tried to oursource our sales a couple of times.

It's absolutely amazing how many marketing companies want to charge you a flat fee. For what, exactly? With a flat fee, they would earn just as much sitting on their backsides, as they would actually selling product.
All but one of those companies lost interest, when I stated that compensation would be performance-based.

It may (but only may) be different with in-house sales. For external sales, I commissions (or some other form of performance-based compensation) ensure that the goals of the two organizations are aligned.

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Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.

Re:Must? by ahadsell · 2017-09-16 02:31 · Score: 1

This is my experience, too. The salesperson is the consistent presence in the cycle, understands the customer's needs, and interprets them to the team that will wind up fulfilling the contract.

There is a huge difference in the job of the salesperson at Best Buy, selling consumer products by the millions, and an engineering company, selling one-off systems to other companies. In the latter case, the salesperson earns his commission. In the former case maybe not so much.

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