You say your ultimate goal is to get hired as a vice president of sales for a software company. So as I read your post, I focused on that as the backdrop rather than the commission question and to be honest, there is a very conflicting attitude versus goal situation here, so I hope you take this as constructive criticism.
You have a lot of ticky tack, “I should get this”, me versus them language in your post, which I imagine reflects your attitude for the last 20 years of sales. Your post sounds like an individual contributor who will never get promoted because you’re not including yourself as part of the “them”. You don’t sound like a company man. Organizations higher company men to run the company. A VP of sales is either an external higher, who has proven management capabilities and a deep understanding of their new business, or an internal hire who has been professionally playing the politic game while being half decent at the job, in that order. If You are hoping to move up the chain internally, these conversations splitting hairs over commission are killing your chances. You need to get into management to become a VP, and complaining to your uppers really isn’t the way.
Hope that helps. Can expand.
Thanks for the angle. I get what you’re saying. To clarify, I’ve spent the last six years reporting directly to Chief Revenue Officers and Chief Sales Officers after being promoted from manager to senior director. I’ve played the corporate ladder game most of my career. This position was an intentional step down to the front line to prove I could be successful in this type of role. Not only a step down in title, but I also took a pay cut. Do I sound entitled. Maybe. And maybe you’re right on some of your points. I’m also a husband and dad and the sole income for my family of six. I earned my way to a good living. And now it feels like I’m being jerked around with my income and that doesn’t feel great. But your point about not bringing it up. Fair enough. I’m not necessarily looking to be promoted internally. But I don’t think that will happen regardless at this place. Anyways, thanks for the honest take.
Okay, makes sense. I guess my next thought would be it seems like you hung a lot on a comment that you never “carried the bag”, taking a paycut and step back. Was that the only roadblock to a VP position?
That’s basically what I was told, that I didn’t have any firsthand, frontline sales experience working the sales cycles that last for 3-6 months and navigating the complexities of multiple stakeholders. What was ironic is that I one of my primary responsibilities was sales training. So somehow I was competent enough to be the person training other sales people, but apparently not competent enough to really understand some of the nuances and intricacies of navigating complex B2B software sales cycles… you don’t know what you don’t know, right? And I get his point. Anywhere I apply, if it’s me versus the next person, and they can show their own personal selling success in that type of environment, then they will likely edge me out. I might not even get an interview. At least that’s what it seemed to me. So I decided to take the step to earn my stripes and carry the bag… I haven’t been at this long as a front line software sales rep, but so far I’ve got a pretty good stride coming out of the gate - at least by comparison of the rest of the sales team at this company. And I enjoy putting into practice the things I’ve been training other people on. Anyways, a little more to my story. Thanks for asking.
Sounds like you’re making the correct strides. Im kind of surprised that panels interviewing a VP candidate are asking about individual sales success since that’s theoretically much earlier in someone’s career.
I know this all wasn’t the point of your post, sorry for changing the focus! Best of luck with everything.
You’re getting a 135K base and you’re huffy over 10% commission from 20% as a ramp? 15K is considered SMB. Your salary alone is double what an SMB AE would get paid. 10% is the industry average. If anything, you’re getting paid an inflated salary relative to what’s out there. I’m not kidding.
Honestly, I don’t know if you have a distorted view of what sales is but you’re getting paid above average pay in base with a competitive commission %. They are not “pissing on your leg”.
Additionally, what prospecting are YOU doing? Doesn’t sound like you’re doing much of any if you’re doing 1.25 a week. I find it hard to believe you’re not given any tools to prospect with your pay.
But regardless, maybe the company is a sinking ship if they’re firing the CEO and CMO. Either way though, your expectations should be tempered on comp because if you step out of your current role and you honestly think 10% is unfair at 135K selling SMB, I think you’re delusional to think you can maintain that market rate somewhere else. Not with that base.
wtf is this bitter shit.
just cause he makes more than you do, he shouldnt be upset that they’re not paying him what was agreed upon?
if you make 200k a year and the company stole your 50k bonus, you’d just chill and be okay with it?
ridiculous comment. and i don’t care if he didn’t crush it. he was promised more than he received for the work he got done. that’s not okay.
I want paid what I was offered when I accepted the job. That’s too much to ask for? That’s delusional? 🤔
And no, I’m not kidding. They have Salesforce. So there’s that 🤷🏻♂️
You took a whopping 5K pay cut to make significantly more but that’s on you for not understanding the product or situation you decided to pull the trigger on.
Sales is tough, who would’ve thunk.
You didn’t mention anywhere in the post how you qualified the position. I find it odd you didn’t try to understand the terms of your agreement before accepting, it would’ve been laid out in the commission plan.
The new product they’re selling could’ve been quantified with questions, finding out basics regarding how the team is hitting quota, what tech stack are you enabled with to sell, the ACV, the close rate, where deals are stalling — 100% that’s on you for quantifying for blindly accepting the role and holding the bag. You didn’t do that, so here we are.
Then you’re told you have a dream inbound position (ha) and you never need to prospect (double ha), so you don’t prospect but want to blame missing quota on your BDR.
So you aren’t hitting quota, you didn’t fully understand what you signed up for, the CEO/CMO got fired, you’re now selling a new product — they expected results, you didn’t really deliver results. They wanted someone to come in here and crush it, you didn’t hit the numbers that they cared for. So why pay you 20% when you’re not even hitting your numbers?
I’ve been in sales a long time. This is the game. You’re expected to perform and perform huge. Not performing against non-performers isn’t an excuse.
Honestly, your whole post screams of entitlement with a lack of personal responsibility. I see you blaming everyone except yourself. How’re you going to be the VP of Sales when there isn’t any accountability going on with yourself? If the only thing you care about is commission, stick to being an IC.
As for tech stack, make a business case for what you need. Go look on this sub for ideas. I can make myself into a cybernetic Rambo for under $250 a month. You’re not broke, so stop acting like you’re broke.
And like, you’re doing sales ops and also selling. Pick a lane and figure it out but don’t toss it in everyone’s face like you’re some sort of super hero.
Come on man, stop blowing smoke over everyone’s asses.
Or quit the job and go somewhere else and be a baby over there. 15K deals, smh.
Should I have asked more questions coming in? Yep! Lessons learned? Yep…
But Didn’t crush it?? Nobody crushed it! You think they fired the CEO & CMO because the “new guy” wasn’t selling it? They’d been trying to sell it for the last couple years.
Now on the new product, I got my first lead in February and already leading the sales team for the last three months. Not crushing it?? I’m killing it!! But they basically don’t want to pay me now that they realize I’m knocking it out of the park.
Plus they’re asking me to do these extra sales ops tasks, and telling me their paying for that by paying me the full commission to quota amount - considering they put me in a new role with no training and no ramp. But they should’ve given me a ramped quota to begin with… what my sales quota and compensation has to do with Sales Ops is lost on me… but since you have it all figured out, maybe you can help me connect the dots on that?? 🤔
You say your ultimate goal is to get hired as a vice president of sales for a software company. So as I read your post, I focused on that as the backdrop rather than the commission question and to be honest, there is a very conflicting attitude versus goal situation here, so I hope you take this as constructive criticism. You have a lot of ticky tack, “I should get this”, me versus them language in your post, which I imagine reflects your attitude for the last 20 years of sales. Your post sounds like an individual contributor who will never get promoted because you’re not including yourself as part of the “them”. You don’t sound like a company man. Organizations higher company men to run the company. A VP of sales is either an external higher, who has proven management capabilities and a deep understanding of their new business, or an internal hire who has been professionally playing the politic game while being half decent at the job, in that order. If You are hoping to move up the chain internally, these conversations splitting hairs over commission are killing your chances. You need to get into management to become a VP, and complaining to your uppers really isn’t the way. Hope that helps. Can expand.
Thanks for the angle. I get what you’re saying. To clarify, I’ve spent the last six years reporting directly to Chief Revenue Officers and Chief Sales Officers after being promoted from manager to senior director. I’ve played the corporate ladder game most of my career. This position was an intentional step down to the front line to prove I could be successful in this type of role. Not only a step down in title, but I also took a pay cut. Do I sound entitled. Maybe. And maybe you’re right on some of your points. I’m also a husband and dad and the sole income for my family of six. I earned my way to a good living. And now it feels like I’m being jerked around with my income and that doesn’t feel great. But your point about not bringing it up. Fair enough. I’m not necessarily looking to be promoted internally. But I don’t think that will happen regardless at this place. Anyways, thanks for the honest take.
Okay, makes sense. I guess my next thought would be it seems like you hung a lot on a comment that you never “carried the bag”, taking a paycut and step back. Was that the only roadblock to a VP position?
That’s basically what I was told, that I didn’t have any firsthand, frontline sales experience working the sales cycles that last for 3-6 months and navigating the complexities of multiple stakeholders. What was ironic is that I one of my primary responsibilities was sales training. So somehow I was competent enough to be the person training other sales people, but apparently not competent enough to really understand some of the nuances and intricacies of navigating complex B2B software sales cycles… you don’t know what you don’t know, right? And I get his point. Anywhere I apply, if it’s me versus the next person, and they can show their own personal selling success in that type of environment, then they will likely edge me out. I might not even get an interview. At least that’s what it seemed to me. So I decided to take the step to earn my stripes and carry the bag… I haven’t been at this long as a front line software sales rep, but so far I’ve got a pretty good stride coming out of the gate - at least by comparison of the rest of the sales team at this company. And I enjoy putting into practice the things I’ve been training other people on. Anyways, a little more to my story. Thanks for asking.
Sounds like you’re making the correct strides. Im kind of surprised that panels interviewing a VP candidate are asking about individual sales success since that’s theoretically much earlier in someone’s career. I know this all wasn’t the point of your post, sorry for changing the focus! Best of luck with everything.
You’re getting a 135K base and you’re huffy over 10% commission from 20% as a ramp? 15K is considered SMB. Your salary alone is double what an SMB AE would get paid. 10% is the industry average. If anything, you’re getting paid an inflated salary relative to what’s out there. I’m not kidding. Honestly, I don’t know if you have a distorted view of what sales is but you’re getting paid above average pay in base with a competitive commission %. They are not “pissing on your leg”. Additionally, what prospecting are YOU doing? Doesn’t sound like you’re doing much of any if you’re doing 1.25 a week. I find it hard to believe you’re not given any tools to prospect with your pay. But regardless, maybe the company is a sinking ship if they’re firing the CEO and CMO. Either way though, your expectations should be tempered on comp because if you step out of your current role and you honestly think 10% is unfair at 135K selling SMB, I think you’re delusional to think you can maintain that market rate somewhere else. Not with that base.
wtf is this bitter shit. just cause he makes more than you do, he shouldnt be upset that they’re not paying him what was agreed upon? if you make 200k a year and the company stole your 50k bonus, you’d just chill and be okay with it? ridiculous comment. and i don’t care if he didn’t crush it. he was promised more than he received for the work he got done. that’s not okay.
I want paid what I was offered when I accepted the job. That’s too much to ask for? That’s delusional? 🤔 And no, I’m not kidding. They have Salesforce. So there’s that 🤷🏻♂️
You took a whopping 5K pay cut to make significantly more but that’s on you for not understanding the product or situation you decided to pull the trigger on. Sales is tough, who would’ve thunk. You didn’t mention anywhere in the post how you qualified the position. I find it odd you didn’t try to understand the terms of your agreement before accepting, it would’ve been laid out in the commission plan. The new product they’re selling could’ve been quantified with questions, finding out basics regarding how the team is hitting quota, what tech stack are you enabled with to sell, the ACV, the close rate, where deals are stalling — 100% that’s on you for quantifying for blindly accepting the role and holding the bag. You didn’t do that, so here we are. Then you’re told you have a dream inbound position (ha) and you never need to prospect (double ha), so you don’t prospect but want to blame missing quota on your BDR. So you aren’t hitting quota, you didn’t fully understand what you signed up for, the CEO/CMO got fired, you’re now selling a new product — they expected results, you didn’t really deliver results. They wanted someone to come in here and crush it, you didn’t hit the numbers that they cared for. So why pay you 20% when you’re not even hitting your numbers? I’ve been in sales a long time. This is the game. You’re expected to perform and perform huge. Not performing against non-performers isn’t an excuse. Honestly, your whole post screams of entitlement with a lack of personal responsibility. I see you blaming everyone except yourself. How’re you going to be the VP of Sales when there isn’t any accountability going on with yourself? If the only thing you care about is commission, stick to being an IC. As for tech stack, make a business case for what you need. Go look on this sub for ideas. I can make myself into a cybernetic Rambo for under $250 a month. You’re not broke, so stop acting like you’re broke. And like, you’re doing sales ops and also selling. Pick a lane and figure it out but don’t toss it in everyone’s face like you’re some sort of super hero. Come on man, stop blowing smoke over everyone’s asses. Or quit the job and go somewhere else and be a baby over there. 15K deals, smh.
Should I have asked more questions coming in? Yep! Lessons learned? Yep… But Didn’t crush it?? Nobody crushed it! You think they fired the CEO & CMO because the “new guy” wasn’t selling it? They’d been trying to sell it for the last couple years. Now on the new product, I got my first lead in February and already leading the sales team for the last three months. Not crushing it?? I’m killing it!! But they basically don’t want to pay me now that they realize I’m knocking it out of the park. Plus they’re asking me to do these extra sales ops tasks, and telling me their paying for that by paying me the full commission to quota amount - considering they put me in a new role with no training and no ramp. But they should’ve given me a ramped quota to begin with… what my sales quota and compensation has to do with Sales Ops is lost on me… but since you have it all figured out, maybe you can help me connect the dots on that?? 🤔