I have worked straight commission sales and I know from experience that hiring someone who can and will make a go of it on commission can be tough. It doesn’t help matters any that there have been so many scam artists telling people how they can make a great living with their great deal when the truth is that one person out of one thousand might be able to survive on it. It throws a cloud of doubt over the honest people who actually do have a legitimate contract to offer.
I have made three hundred dollars in one day and a thousand in one week back in 1970 when a hundred and a half a week was pretty good pay. I also have slugged away for a three week stretch between sales. Straight commission is not for the faint hearted.
In my 23 years in the industry I have hired 148 account executives. Most were straight commission. About 20% made a VERY good living. About 30% did okay. The rest spent more time complaining about how hard it was than actually working.
We had a VERIFIED, PROVEN formula that showed if you did as little as walked in cold (we sell primarily to small businesses) introduced yourself, dropped off a flier, and left, over time you would earn an average of $2 per walk in. More ambitious reps would target vertical markets and do even better. Over 80% of our clients reorder within six months and commissions are paid on reorders, even though there is generally minimal follow up needed. By my fourth year I had sales in excess of $1 million. If you treat it like a job and actually work, you do well.
Oh, the faint of heart need not apply.