Sales is a lucrative career if you work it right; in fact, it’s perfectly attainable to scale your earnings up to six-figures through commission alone. Whether you’re looking to grow your pay on a commission-only basis or atop a base salary, it’s not a matter of pure hustle to multiply your income. A significant boost in sales earnings only requires setting specific, realistic goals and implementing a focused approach to reach them. Here is a guide to aim your income goals far higher and start reaching them.
Setting Your Income Goals
There are 2 things you can do to earn far more in sales:
- Sell many more deals.
- Sell much larger deals.
Realistically, you can only do one of these well. To illustrate, here’s a model to be adjusted for each approach below.
Commission ÷ Rate = Sales
or
Sales x Rate = Commission
Let’s say your commission is 20% of every deal. $30,000/year in commission means you need $150,000/year in sales:
$30,000/year ÷ 20% = $150,000/year (or $12,500/month)
Let’s say you make an average of 4 sales month. That means you’re selling average deals of $3,125 and earning an average of $625 in commission from each deal, totalling $2,500 a month:
$12,500/month ÷ 4 deals = $3,125/deal
$3,125/deal (Sales) x 20% (Rate) = $625/deal or $2,500/month (Commission)
So how do you get to $300,000 in commission?
Selling more deals: One option to scale your income is to focus on making more of the same kind of sale – to do this, multiply your average number of deals by 10:
4 deals x 10 = 40 deals
Selling 40 deals at an average of $3,125 brings you up to $125,000/month in sales:
40 deals x $3,125/deal = $125,000/month
And your commission goes up to $25,000/month for a total of $300,000/year:
$125,000/month x 20% = $25,000/month (or $300,000/year) in commission
Aspiring to 40 deals from 4 is a lofty goal, though, and you may have to work 10 times a hard. What might make more sense is working just as much, but changing your strategy so you can sell larger deals.
Selling larger deals: Make larger sales instead – multiply your average deal value by 10.
$3,125/deal x 10 = $31,250/deal
This means you need to sell 4 deals worth an average of $31,250 each for $125,000/month in sales:
4 deals x $31,250/deal = $125,000/month
Bringing your commission up to $6250/deal for $25,0000/month or $300,000/year:
$31,250/deal (Sales) x 20% = $6,250/deal in commission
$125,000/month (Sales) x 20% = $25,000/month or $300,000/year
Hitting Your Income Goals
Once you choose one of these approaches, you have groundwork to set your goals. To increase sales and start meeting (or exceeding!) those goals, you can tap into an invaluable resource: your existing customer base.
Adjust Your Focus
To achieve your goals and your company’s, you must shift focus from the product & company onto the customer. 300K salespersons dig deep to understand their customers’ goals, then figure out how the product will empower the customer to reach those goals. Get in touch with past & present customers and find out what motivated them to buy, what works for them and what doesn’t, and as much as you can learn in between. This will allow you to continuously refine your customer persona for a highly effective sales strategy.
Research Why Your Customers Buy From You
Ask things like:
- What made you decide on us?
- Why have you stayed with us?
- What problems do we solve for you?
- What do you like about our product or service?
- What do you dislike about our product or service?
- If you could change one thing about doing business with us, what would it be?
Apply What You Learn
Use what you discover – the real reasons customers come and stay – to fine-tune your sales messaging with powerful relevance. When you show your knowledge of your customer’s experiences, they will view & trust you as an expert.
For example, you could use your findings to introduce a conversation like this:
“If you’re like most of the other clients we work with, the problem you’re dealing with is finding employees who stay with you at a good price. Does that sound true?”Once you set specific income goals and become fluent in your customer’s needs, you can grow your sales earnings exponentially. Sales Arbiter specializes in training teams and individuals to use proven methods for maximizing sales. When you’re ready to develop your sales team to reach its full sales potential, contact us to start working with our team of experts.
