Woof! The sound jolted me out of my commuter trance.
There, in the driveway, a familiar Goldendoodle galloped in circles. Seamus! He seemed willing to do anything to get his chief neck-scratcher out of the car. This common occurrence, on one particular day, made me think. Are he and I all that different? Yes, I do business in from my car and at customer offices and Seamus does his business (apparently today) in the front yard. Still, isn’t the need for comfort and companionship at the heart of everything both he and I do?
People vs. Dogs? No Contest.
OK, I’ll give you that humans are much more complex and harder to please. We require money, recognition, challenge, and and a nice benefits package for motivation. And no two of us are the same. Thankfully we have many careers to choose from!
In some jobs, if we follow several precise and, at times, complex steps and our job is guaranteed to be done (ie. Assembly line work). In other jobs, like sales, we’re given recommended steps, often called sales models, but paid only when another person takes action. Ether scenario requires advanced learning and decision-making. Score one for humans over dogs!
Still, in sales, no technique works all time and therefore success is never guaranteed. This leads us to try a variety of tactics in order to find what wins the sale. Seamus does this too when he sees a treat in my hand and he performs all of his tricks to see what works. Score one for Seamus!
Clearly, We Have the Edge!
Alas, as smart as he is, the poor Seamus would never know the difference if between a ‘commission’ of 1 treat or a bag of 20. Nope. He’d run through the same routine of sitting, giving paw, and barking, regardless of what’s at stake. You, of course, would know better.
We know the difference between commissions of $500, $5,000, or $50,000 and can act accordingly. The higher the commission, the more we’re willing to do. And it makes sense doesn’t it? In order to GET more we should expect to DO more!
Like I said, it makes sense – sometimes a little too much sense.
Anything To Fill Our Bowl
Crazy commissions can induce, big surprise, crazy behavior. When a single check can pay off a car (even a mortgage) or send our baby to college, let the salivation begin! Suddenly, naughty urges to stretch the truth or withhold key information, dance in the heads of rational people. Luckily most of us resist these temptations. Most of us.
For me it was over 20 years ago, in college, when I first learned how far a salesperson might go. I sold computers for Sears in Akron, Ohio and remember a blond haired guy in his 20s, with glasses and an ill-fitting suit, who immediately after hire, crushed our sales targets. Instantly, his encyclopedic knowledge and quick wit turned the rest of us into amateurs! Two weeks later, he was fired.
Apparently our meager commissions were enough incentive for him to lie to customers. If he’d do that for an extra $50 or $100 per sale, what would a bigger reward inspire? Times, sadly, haven’t changed much. Some salespeople still behave badly. The recent Wells Fargo scandal is a prime example.
Those horrible, unethical salespeople! Why do they keep reappearing? They all need to be fired and replaced! WAIT. Don’t we already do that? Haven’t we been firing them for years? Either sales is just an evil job that attracts bad bad people or maybe..just maybe..there’s a problem with the system.
Bad Policies = Bad Behavior
To the non-sales world, salespeople are all after one thing: commissions. All we care about is our cars (mine’s falling apart) and our fancy suits (I don’t even wear one). While none of us turn down the extra checks, there’s something we find even more important: survival.
For some reps it’s a daily dilemma, do what’s right and risk not selling enough or bend the rules and either win big money or the right to keep you job. And, just to raise the likelihood of ulcers, what about salespeople who work in highly competitive environments? (Aka all of them). What if you find out your ‘superior’ teammate secretly over-charges customers? Should you do the same? After all you’ve got a family to support and how could you let them down?
“Hold on, you can’t do that,” says the voice of reason, “you’ll get fired!” But you better sell enough, otherwise…you’ll get fired?
MAN, I AM SO JEALOUS OF MY DOG!
What We Can Do Differently
Humbly, I propose four ideas to help companies out of this dilemma:
- Pay higher and more competitive base salaries with less commission. That way salespeople focus on the enjoyment of selling, not life changing, ethics-altering rewards.
- Stop comparing and start sharing. You want your salesforce unite and defeat a common foe like in Lord of The Rings – not killing each other on a deserted island like in Lord of the Flies. Reps frequently equate their peer’s high performance with cheating. Less comparison takes away the temptation to bend rules for survival.
- Establish ethical rules for the the sales force, make them clear, and enforce them equally. No one will accuse top performers of anything but excellence, when they trust the rules apply equally to all.
- Use sales targets, not do or die quotas. People will follow rules when they don’t have to scan the horizon for threats. They’ll also feel valued and work harder as a result.
In short, Seamus and I both like nice rewards. There’s only so much, however, Seamus is willing to do to get them. I like to think I’m the same and, given the right system, the rest of us human salespeople can be as well.
Sincerely,
