I can easily speak from experience for this week’s blog post. I will start off by including some context. I work in sales and have been in sales since the start of my career. I currently work for a large, tech company, but have experience working at much smaller, tech start-ups.
As I am sure many of you can imagine, compensation is an immense part of sales. Most people I work with have chosen a job with the idea that the more they produce or sell, the more compensation they receive. My first job out of college was working in sales for a start-up. The pay structure was set up so that we made most of our money in commission. In fact, the base salary was hardly liveable in a big city. This is fairly common in the tech start-up world. Another common part of the tech start-up world: incomplete or failing products. As we ran into issues with the product, fewer and fewer hit quota and compensation started to drastically decrease. This left many employees uneasy and nervous about not only their compensation but their job security as well. The everyday stress we experienced knowing next month’s check relied on us hitting what felt like an unattainable quota was exhausting and difficult. After experiencing this firsthand, I made a decision that I would focus on a career in sales with a different type of compensation plan. I would only be interested in more stable jobs with higher base salaries and smaller chunks of motivating commission. Lucky for me, I found the perfect mix in my current role. I feel safe at a reputable company with a higher base salary, but I am still motivated by significant bonuses I am able to receive based on my performance.
