Surviving on "Commission-Only" in Sales: What You Need to Know

Commission only can be a horrifying way to earn a living. There's instability, insecurity, and a mystery of how much you'll get paid and when you'll get paid. And it's for this reason that many people avoid having a commission only position or jump ship entirely, largely due to the pressure from the spouse or significant other at home that wants that stability and consistency. So if you're someone who's either new to this or you've been in a while, or maybe you're an owner manager, you need to try to communicate the beauty of this position to a new person. Share this video and I really hope that it helps you go from being fearful to feeling abundant. Because at the end of the day, roofing sales truly can do that for you. And it did it for me. See, I got into the business in 2011 and if we haven't met yet, my name is Adam Bensman and I came from maybe a similar place that you did. See, I drank the Kool Aid where people tell you to do what you're passionate about and and you'll be happy and make money in life. And I proved that to be completely wrong. It didn't work for me and it doesn't work for very many people. See, I was passionate about natural medicine, helping people heal through things that they were really struggling with, both on the mental and emotional level and the physical level. So I studied up. I in fact became an instructor for these particular modalities. I was really good at what I did. I then started my own practice, got my own office space. But the problem is I was in a brand new city and getting started was hard. In fact, it was so hard that I couldn't make ends meet. So to do that, I got a job at a massage therapy franchise. Now this place paid terribly. My W2 for that year was $19,000 and change. I was living on a very strict food budget of just $4.20 a day. I didn't go out to eat for any reason. Then I discovered roofing sales when I kind of hit rock bottom. Rock bottom for me was not being able to afford gas to go and drive and see my family on a holiday two hours away. My mom flung me the money. My stepdad Ron called. He's like, dude, you know you can make 100 grand a year more so on roost, door to door. So that's how I got into this business. But when I first got into it, the fears that I had around the instability and insecurity and especially knowing once I talked to more people that it could be 8, 10, 12 weeks before money starts really rolling in. I didn't know how to navigate that. So I hope this video helps you navigate this brand new unchartered territory so you can live a long, happy, healthy and prosperous career in roofing sales. Now let's get started. Roofing sales is personal development in disguise and the reward for growth is life changing. I hope my content helps you create a richer life and bank account. All right, there's three things that we're going to be talking about today. One is the mindset of being commission only. Two is some practical advice and three is some money management tips. So let's begin first with the mindset. Now you get to pick. Okay, here's your choice. You can choose stability and consistency or high income. Which one do you want? You can't have it both ways. That's just life, same thing. If you want flexibility and freedom, you likely give up earning potential. Now for those people out there that are making a bunch of money with flexibility and freedom, they got there after putting in all the work they had to make the sacrifices up front for putting in long, arduous hours doing things that other people aren't willing to do. So for your income, if you want stability and consistency, I'm just going to tell you now, leave roofing sales. That's not for you. This equates to a lower income. You don't meet people that have multi six figure jobs that have stability and security. It's very, very rare unless you're willing to go to school for decades practically and leave school with damn near $1 million of debt these days. On the flip side, you can have high income as long as you're willing to give up the stability and the security. So when you make this, when you recognize this from a mindset standpoint, you can say, hey, I making a conscious choice to give up the stability and the security in exchange for high income. Now the other piece in the mindset side that I need to address is the doubts from the significant other, friends or family that tell you that they want you to have stability and security. What other people want for you may not be the same thing as what you want or need for yourself. So if someone says, hey, don't take this job because you're giving up the stability, you gotta ignore it. Now, I absolutely love my family and in fact my family is some of my biggest supporters. But what they wanted for me when I got into the business was stability and security. So when I said, hey, I'm jumping ship from my massage therapy job, even though I was literally living below the poverty line. They said, hey, Adam, you know, don't give up on that job, that stability and security. And I'm looking around thinking to myself, what is stable and secure about poverty level? Like, it's just guaranteed misery. So to me, I needed to take that leap. So that's our mindset discussion for now. Now I want to get into the practical advice, and then we're going to wrap up with money management. The practical advice is you must know your financial needs. I'm going to repeat that. You got to know your numbers. Far too many people have no idea what they actually need to live on, by the way. I was one of those people because having to face money or my money problems at the time was really scary. It made me feel insecure. It made me feel like a loser, to be frank. Like, having to ask my mom in my 20s for $20 in gas money to drive to go see family was, like, demoralizing. I hated it. But if you actually know how much money you need, you can then start budgeting and planning accordingly. And so many people just skip this common sense step, by the way. I did, until I wised up, by the way, to create some semblance of stability. So let me give you an example. Like, in my sales system, every single salesperson begins by getting a daily sales plan that is built around their personal income goal. And I want you to do this exercise with me right now. Write down these three numbers. Number one, how much money you need to make to survive. This is, by the way, on the spreadsheet that I provide, which is basically a calculator. Okay, next column. How much you want to earn in the next year, your income goal. Then the third column is your stretch goal. If you really put in the work and you crush it, how much could you earn? So for simple math and 75,000, maybe your baseline income needs for you and your family, then you've got your income goal. I'm going to call it $125,000. And then your stretch goal is going to be 175,000. So we have 75, 125, 175. Once I know that my income needs are $75,000 a year, I can break that down to a monthly requirement. Take a look at my savings, my credit card, and what I'm willing to pull from to survive on. Say that's my monthly nut. And I know that I can be strict to adhering to this until I get money rolling In. Likewise, when you have the instability of checks coming in and I don't know how much or when they'll land, you can start planning ahead to float you through again. Many people don't do this. They just hope and pray and hope the money starts rolling in and say meet and I need money now. Where many people in roofing sales require going like into debt to some degree or tapping into their savings or family or credit cards in order to start making money. If you're not willing to take that risk, this industry is a really tough one to get rocking and rolling on. All right, there's your practical advice. By the way, in my system, which you can reverse engineer much of this. Now, you'll take that income need income goal, stretch goal, and figure out how many sales you need to make per year based on an average commission at your company. You need to factor in then your average close rate as a company, which should be relatively easy to get from leadership, assuming everyone has their numbers tracked. And then you'll know how many appointments you need to run each week. Now, ultimately, back to our mindset. Your job is to focus on the number of appointments you need to run, not how many sales. Why? Because this keeps the hopper full. Now the next question is, well, what do I need to do to generate those number of appointments? That's what the rest of the calculator that I provide to all of the people who are using my sales system and starting on, I can do for you, tell you how many doors you need to knock every day, cold calls to make, direct mail letters to send, referrals to ask for, and it becomes relatively easy to just follow the activities each and every day and then the results will follow. Leadership. If it's not following, that's when we start coaching at an individual level, using my roleplay training, et cetera. Now, I want to end with some money management advice. Far too many people don't manage their money. I myself, my weakness was vehicles. I spent way too much money on vehicles when I started making money. But when you start making money in this business, for many of us, we make more than we've ever made before, and it's very important that you manage it well. Now what do I mean by that? Now that you know how much money you need each and every month, I want you to slowly build up until you have six months worth of of expenses sitting in your savings account to float you by when it's winter, when it's slow, when your commission checks are hung up, and if you can manage your money While you bring them in, you start squirreling enough away, you can create that level of stability that you'd get from a salaried career. And it might require you just kind of kicking the can down the road to do the big expensive things and buy the house, buy a new car or a boat. But if you don't blow it and you just buy, budget some cash towards your living expenses, when you create that Runway for yourself of living expenses, the fear of how much I'm going to make and when's it going to come eases. Because now you're not in a position of needing money, you're in a position of wanting money. And it allows you to take bigger risks. Chase the hoa, the church, the big deals that take a longer time to pay out because the sales cycle is longer. And when you have this money padding your bank account, which it will happen, it just takes a little time in planning. You come to the table on every sale with this, hey, I don't really care if you buy or not. And that level of indifference helps you close even more sales. All right, just cause our time here is about to wrap. Don't leave yet because I have one more video for you that you're going to love. Okay? If you like this idea of building up a little bit of wealth so you can come to the table saying, hey, it doesn't matter if you buy from me or not. It's called not wanting a sale. And I have an entire video on that and how you can cultivate this mindset. Because believe it or not, when you sell from this place of not needing a sale, your close rate will go up and you'll start making even more money. So hop right into that video right now and I will see you on the next one.