Where are all the Good Commission Only Sales People??

Probably the most common frustration people approach me with is,

“It’s so HARD to find good commission only sales people!”

There’s a couple of really good reasons for this.

Glaringly obvious reason #1 is simply this – if you’ve heard all that stuff about outsourcing what you’re not good at and you’re outsourcing sales because you don’t like it … seriously, how do you see that going?

Even The Leela – whose partner is a professional 10 year veteran of the Commission Only Sales Game and works for her full time – took a year off her business and went and worked in comm only sales in her industry.

Why?

Because you CAN’T MANAGE what you don’t understand. Commission only sales is a HARD job. You’re on the phone all day – and you have NO GUARANTEE that you’ll make enough money to feed yourself or your family. It’s emotionally draining. So, why would anyone do it? Because there’s a CRAPLOAD of money to be made.

So – how much money did you make last year? What’s your profit margin? What’s the percentage you’re planning on paying?

Because if you made $100,000 worth of sales last year and you’re paying 10% – that’s $10,000. In a YEAR. Are you SERIOUSLY going to ask someone to work full time for that money? Because let me tell you, as a sales person married to a sales person – the first question we would ask you if we were looking at working for you would be,

“How much money can I expect to make?”

If that number is less than $150,000 (which means $1.5 Million in Sales) – then why would I work for you when I could be working for a large company who would supply me with not only the assurance of making that kind of cash … but also with a car, a phone, a computer and bonuses?

Even better than that – they’ll provide me with a script, with leads, with a marketing machine behind me – and most importantly, with a manager who has sold the product themselves … so when I go to them and say,

“I keep coming up against this objection … ” they can tell me how to answer that.

Can you provide me with all this? Then forget about trying to get fully trained, awesome commission only sales people to work for you. It’s not going to happen.

Which brings us to the second bit … which is: The reason you’re struggling to find good sales people is because you want The Best, straight out of the box. You want extraordinary people (who are, by definition, in any industry a limited number of people) to get you extraordinary results.

EVERY company who employs sales people will tell you – the way you get great sales people is to build them. You need a plug and play system that you can put ORDINARY people into and get extraordinary results from them. But that system HAS to include someone who has already done it to manage the whole thing, so you’ve got two choices: Pay a Wage and get someone in who’ll help you OR (and this is definitely what I think!) Learn to sell yourself. Learn how to develop scripts and systems.

Because I know a lot of you love to think that being in business is about your profession – that it’s about going and having important business person coffee and going to networking meetings.

But Business = Sales.

There’s no way around that.

If you’re not making sales, you’re not IN business.

People who call themselves entrepreneurs and then say they hate sales make me laugh – entrepreneurs are merely sales people who earn 100% commission. If you think you can get out of this business thing without having to sell … then I suggest just getting out of this business thing …

However – if you’re willing to learn, what you need to know is that Sales is a SKILL – not a gift. I’m a natural introvert – I am, to this day, still kind of shy. And yet in my year in phone sales I made over $1Million for the people I worked for. Not because I’m special or gifted – but because I dug my heels in and learned what I needed to know.

The effect that’s had on my business? Well it’s DEFINITELY a contributing factor to our 400% business growth last year. And I’d go a step further and say – if I hadn’t of learned to sell, I wouldn’t have a business anymore. I simply would not have made enough money and would have had to give up …