Inside the business world, an employees sales commission is income on top of their base salary. For example, a medical saleswoman has a base salary of $40,000 and takes home an additional $110,000 in sales commission this year. She makes $150,000 a year before taxes.
According to a 2018 study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median income for a salesperson in the United States was $55,000 annually. Sales commission is proven to be an effective way to compensate salespeople and to promote more sales. Companies can pay high performing sales reps when revenue is recognized. And the salespeople that hit or exceed a predefined target will typically get a chance to qualify for bonus compensation. Live in the bonus! At least I did when I was a high performing sales rep.
What I love about sales, one’s performance is easily measured. In my nearly three years as a field sales rep, I sold over $10,000,000 of services and estimate around 3 percent of sales as commission. Not bad for a young black male but quite frankly 3 percent it’s not enough to live out my goals.
How can I help others? Obtaining “enough” is not a pay raise, or more sales, or even reaching a bonus. I’m at a point in my career where I can transfer sales and business skills into entrepreneur opportunities that will create value for others. Gaining experience in sales, training, and management has launched me into leadership positions, which has helped prepare me to be an entrepreneur.
Inside the corporate world, there is a lot of pressure to be “good,” but be sure you are not “too good” because you will create a bigger target for yourself. Please consider modesty and find ways to transfer skills and make your next move great. Of course, there are mistakes along the way, but ultimately, you will learn and move on from those mistakes. I haven’t experienced an error too large which would prohibit me from progressing my career, at the same time though, the bullshit of other people has helped me shift gears and become more conscious of my labor time on earth.
Sales is a mental, emotional, spiritual, and lastly physical game, and the rules are nearly the same for running your own business. Sprinkle your heart and grit, and you get that “entrepreneur spirit” often seen on job applications. While working as a sales rep and after I finished my MBA in 2016, I started a marijuana company which currently has a value of $10,000,000 pre-outside funding.
Some might ask, how do you determine the companies valuation? The short answer discounted cash flow, using a baseline from other companies in our market, and future revenue projections.
We have two locations in two different cities, both with community host agreements on the table. After we finish local planning permits, we will obtain our full marijuana license. Currently, we are in a social equity program which presents itself as the Common Wealth effort to reverse the harms of the targeted arrest in particular areas. In this program, we earned expedited licensing, and with two spots, we worked backward on financial projections and our overall start-up cost.
Easily put, Major Bloom is a unique business in a thriving industry during times of change.
Some form of change will always come. During my nearly 8-years of corporate experience which includes; marketing, sales, training, management, and leadership I never got too comfortable in my roles, no matter how good a job I was doing. I primarily worked within two industries that have been around for many decades, the healthcare and energy industries.
Now the cannabis industry is considered, to most, as “new” and emerging; realistically, the plant has been around before Christ, many sources say. The business of mass incarceration is also a relatively “new” phenomenon, although it resembles slave times as a half-sibling of some sort. In sales, there is high earner potential, but I found earnings it not enough to make an impact on other lives. Entrepreneurship and leadership will create prosperity and help me – help other people. Being in corporate sales has helped me realize and sharpen that vision. I look forward to learning more and growing more business.
