Why Must You Pay Sales People Commissions? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Must You Pay Sales People Commissions?

#321

Post by mavhc » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 8:17 AM UTC

jasode wrote: post #258

mavhc wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An engineer doesn't want to make a bad product, but if a company has a good product they don't even need to hire a salesperson

Both Boeing and Airbus make good airplanes. Nevertheless, they hire expensive salespeople and pay them massive commissions. They don't just tell the airlines to download a pdf brochure of the planes' specifications and call them when they're ready to place an order. People making statements such as "good products sell themselves" are probably thinking about gadgets like iPhones that don't require "greasy used car sal…

But you can't trust what the company says about its own product, so you really you're talking to someone who can negotiate a contract where you get your money back if it sucks.

If they get their money back, does the contract negotiator lose their commission again?

Re: Why Must You Pay Sales People Commissions?

#322

Post by vidarh » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 1:44 PM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #174

vidarh wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge portion of the small to mid-sized clients I have which end up using AWS do so because they've been approached by sales people handing out free credits like candy. Often it short-circuits cost/benefit evaluations completely. But AWS also often start as a $10/month product, and then one more, and one more. I think that's a huge portion of their success - it's easy to ramp up the cost slow enough and in small eno…

> People usually move off AWS first when if it gets to be enough of a cost pain-point to make higher ups take notice. Isn't that the point of cloud computing? So you don't have to worry about datacenter capacity until it becomes a major cost center?

You don't tend to have to worry about capacity with the cheaper options either.

Re: Why Must You Pay Sales People Commissions?

#323

Post by rayiner » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 2:16 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #311

rayiner wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you chose to have the aptitude to write code? Why should a person who can’t write code but can paint fences get rewarded less for giving up an hour of their limited time on earth than someone who can code?

I may not have chosen to have the aptitude to write code, but I did choose to go to college to better learn how to do it. I also chose to work very hard in my industry to advance. Had this come with zero financial rewards I probably wouldn't have done those things. Do you actually believe this or are you just saying something striking to illustrate an underlying principle?

> Do you actually believe this or are you just saying something striking to illustrate an underlying principle?

It’s where I get if I’m thinking about moral justice instead of incentives/the economy. I’m not saying my proposal is workable. It’s just my observation that the last decade has been a tale of two cities for millenials. My friends who are “good at math” have been living in a different economy from everyone else.

Re: Why Must You Pay Sales People Commissions?

#324

Post by alien_at_work » Fri, Sep 15, 2017, 2:16 PM UTC

wiz21c wrote: post #277

alien_at_work wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you're saying here at all. Are you under the impression that money someone needs to live has something to do with compensation? Labor is a market like any other. A sales salary has nothing to do with how much a sales person needs to live but rather perceived value of a sales role. In my personal experience, sales people tended to have higher salaries along with strong commission. Maybe your co…

good questions indeed. I was challenging the fact that, as you say : "Labor is a market like any other.". I don't think it is like that because behind each job there's a life. Moreover, on the fact that engineers and sales persons should have the same salaries, yep that's what I think. I don't see why sales works should be more compensated. I understand that the way it is compensated (bonus for sales) is the way it w…

>I don't think it is like that because behind each job there's a life.

Labor is a market. It's a shockingly inefficient one, but it's definately a market.

Re: Why Must You Pay Sales People Commissions?

#325

Post by idlewords » Fri, Sep 15, 2017, 2:35 PM UTC

unabridged wrote: post #49

idlewords wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla has a sales team, you're just not looking in the right place. Their sales team works with investors, and sells them on a story.

Definitely but I think goes into the marketing/advertising category. But either way almost every other car company has an end sales person used to jack up the price, while tesla can sell cars at a fixed price off a website. And this is solely because of the perceived quality of the product.

My point is that Tesla can lose money on every sale. Other companies don't have that luxury, and so need salespeople.

Re: Why Must You Pay Sales People Commissions?

#326

Post by calinet6 » Mon, Sep 18, 2017, 2:33 AM UTC

robocat wrote: post #316

calinet6 wrote: post #2

A strong argument would at least consider the systemic consequences of commissions, rather than just extolling the assumed virtues in a circular argument. What is their impact on product? On support? Engineering morale? On the customer experience itself? Just a myriad of effects not even considered here when commissions are looked at in isolation, the system be damned. It's probably very true that it's not plausible…

Thinline misposted response to the inc.com article: Interesting last comment (from November 2016) to the original article: "Important Update * I am currently employed at Pluralsight, and I feel obligated to point out that the author of this article, our CEO, no longer believes or stands behind any of the content in this article. Pluralsight does not operate under the Deming philosophy. As of January 2017, Pluralsight…

Thank you—that's revelatory and mildly disappointing. I'll have to look into it more closely.

Re: Why Must You Pay Sales People Commissions?

#327

Post by thinline » Mon, Sep 18, 2017, 5:20 AM UTC

trevyn wrote: post #191

jasode wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused why you think the old Pluralsight comment is relevant to this article: 1) The author Ben Horowitz is a VC and not the CEO of Pluralsight. 2) The article explains the psychology & incentives for sales commissions instead of advising companies to pay their salespeople zero commissions.

thinline's comment is just misposted at root level; several of the other comments on this page refer to: https://www.inc.com/aaron-skonnard/why-sales-commissions-don...

Yes, meant as a reply to one of those...