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Sales Commissions Must Die

The only way the world will ever achieve honesty and ethics in sales is to completely eliminate sales commissions from the equation.

And you can quote me on that.

I've been trying to capture this concept in writing for six months, but I kept hitting roadblocks, deleting what I wrote and shelving it for a while. I think I figured out why -- making the full case is too complex for a short blog entry. Instead, I need to convey the concept in basic form and hope a few people who agree and disagree pick up the banner, start a debate and flesh it out together.

So following will be a disjointed train of thought that I hope makes the basic point.

• I believe that all salespeople should be honest with their prospects and strive to be moral and ethical in all aspects of their jobs. Just like all executives, department heads, managers, employees, etc. in every other department at all companies. And I think those who don't -- meaning the career liars -- should be drawn and quartered in the town square. (Okay, maybe torture is a tad strong. How about we just line them up for the firing squad instead?)
• One of the things my father taught me in my youth came in the form of a casual comment he made while snapping a lock closed on his tool trailer. "Locks keep honest people honest," he said. "They won't stop the career criminals, but they will keep the honest folks from succumbing to easy temptation."
• There is no "make sure my employees are honest" process you can invent that a dishonest employee can't get around. (See Dad's lesson about locks.)
• In my experience, the top people on a sales team -- the 20 percent that close 80 percent of the business -- would not be happy without the bottom 80 percent, because they truly enjoy being recognized as the best. And without the bottom people to sit in wide-eyed awe, your ego gets no strokes.
• On every sales team with which I have ever been involved, I have found most dishonesty resides in the tier-two salespeople -- the folks who are driven to be the best but who just can't seem to get there. (Interestingly, it's usually honesty that will get them to the top, but they just don't "get it.")
• Assuming your company is larger than one person, and successful, it is surely built of people working together for a common cause. To illustrate this point, let's talk about a 100-person manufacturer with a standard corporate structure. It has operations teams, manufacturing teams, accounting teams, HR teams, marketing teams, PR teams, delivery teams, maintenance teams -- you get the idea. All the people on these teams draw salaries or an hourly wage -- none get base pay for individual accomplishment. Sure, the company uses a profit-sharing model or bonus structure to reward growth and individual achievement, but its employees' base pay is fixed -- and everyone thrives.
• I believe it is contrary to company culture, sound business practices and common sense to pay your sales team differently than all these other teams at your company. And I believe this pay difference is the root cause of all conflicts generated within the sales department itself, and between the sales department and all other departments.
• Suppose for a moment you paid each person on your accounting team a small salary plus a portion of any bottom-line dollar he or she could generate for the company every day. Further suppose you put a chart on the wall of all accountants' status -- showing their rankings of best to worse in their ability to generate those dollars. What kind of people would be attracted to this team? Would they be competitive or collaborative? Would they be money-driven or team-oriented? Would those with bills to pay -- like the guy with the gambling problem -- be tempted to cook the books a bit, "spin" results or exaggerate "all the money we're about to save"? Would they get along as well with the other departments -- the ones spending the money they're trying to save? Would egos clash? Would bottom-tier accountants come and go every year? Would top-tier accountants strut just a bit?

Whenever you have a situation where one team -- a company, for example -- is made up of two groups -- employees drawing salary and salespeople earning commissions -- you will have constant conflict between the two groups. And no locks will ever cease the conflict.

Sales commissions reward competitiveness over collaboration. Sales commissions reward individuality and chest-beating over teamwork. Sales commissions reward trickery over honesty.

If you want your sales team to exhibit the same collaboration, teamwork and honesty demonstrated by the rest of the people at your company, sales commissions must die.

Gill E. Wagner, Sage of Selling
President of Honest Selling
Founder of the Yellow-Tie International Business Development Association

Stratospheric Success

If you want success, give.

If you want huge success, give huge.

If you want stratospheric success ... (you get the point).

Earlier this week a colleague gave me a copy of a new book, "The Go-Giver," by Bob Burg and John David Mann. I've read a lot of business books through the years, and I have never failed to disagree with some of the concepts conveyed -- because I'm an often arrogant, do-it-myself, 10,000-ideas-a-day maverick.

Thankfully, Burg and Mann have broken that perfect record of dissent and made an impact on my life in the process. I am now in the throws of reevaluating my own giving nature and, unfortunately, finding that while I give a lot, I have not been giving at the stratospheric level.

Interestingly enough, just more than one year ago I considered giving all my sales training away for free, since I was more interested in working on higher-level issues with sales managers and executives. But I could never figure out how to make that generate sales, so I didn't pull the trigger.

And back when I wrote my first (and still only) book, I considered giving it away free. But for the first eight months, I gave only a couple chapters free, hoping that "test drive" would stimulate sales. It wasn't until I decided to forget about sales completely -- putting the entire book on my website -- that sales took care of themselves.

Every time in my life I said "screw it" and gave away the farm, my crops grew stronger than ever.

About 30 minutes ago, I implemented the idea to give away the free sales training. I have no strategy for how that will create success, nor am I keeping track. You see, Karma is just like gravity -- the bigger the object the more it attracts other objects. That's why giving at stratospheric levels always works -- when your Karma is huge, all things come to you.

From this moment on, all sales training that my company provides will be completely, totally, free.

Note: In my opinion, if you believe in giving and don't read a copy of "The Go-Giver" immediately, it's a mistake.

Gill E. Wagner, Sage of Selling
President of Honest Selling
Founder of the Yellow-Tie International Business Development Association