A sales trainer shares how they negotiated straight commission with escalating rates from 15% to 19%, earning nearly $3M in one year. They refused base salary offers and used multi-year 1099 records to prove their track record to employers.
How did I make a bit under $3 million in one year in sales commissions? So the industry you're getting recruited from, you need to have like a massive track record from that industry. You need to be able to like, show proof. You can show your commission checks. Maybe you show your W2s or if you're 1099. What I did is I just literally showed my 1099s from the industry. Like, here they are the last six years. Do you want to hire me or not? And they're like, oh, yes, we'll hire you. And then usually what they would try to do is put me on a base. So they'd be like, oh, we'll pay you 150 to sometimes 250gr end of your base, and then we'll pay you 5 to 7% commission. I'm like, no, no, why would I do that? I'm not going to make any base. Like, what's a base? Bases are for people who don't really feel confident in their sales ability. Because why else would you want a base salary if you were really, really confident in your sales ability? If you were 100% confident in your sales ability, you'd want to get paid straight commission because they're willing to pay you more. So I said, wipe out the base. You pay me 15% per sale. If I hit certain numbers, you know it's going to be 17% all the way up to 19%. I' get 19% every single month. And that's how I was making. You're talking like 270, 280,000amonth in commissions.
