You feel like upper management is constantly trying to siphon money out of your pockets. Half of your commissions are based on a hard line, meaning you either get it or you don't. The commissions are based on 1) accessories (gross per phone and tablet), 2) insurance (gross per phone and tablet), 3) new lines added, and 4) non-phone new lines (watches, tablets, etc). All of these seem reasonable individually, but the reality is that some people will simply be too stubborn to get insurance and accessories. This results in you constantly trying to figure out if you are taking a "bad sale" that could easily cost you upwards of $500/month.
Breaking down the commission structure more:
If you get 6K in gross sales, you get 5% of your gross profit. If you hit 12K, you get 10% of your gross profit. For other goals, you get 2.5% added on to that. Those goals are $70 dollars gross profit for every phone or tablet you get out, $45 in gross profit insurance for every phone or tablet, 15 new lines, and 20% of every phone sale should have a tablet, watch, etc. (non phone line paired with it). These add up to 10% possible.
The dilemma that too many good sales reps fall into is getting close to all those commission goals. At the end of the month, you're asking yourself whether you should bring up a tablet promotion to a customer, because if they don't get accessories and insurance on it, you could fall below 2 of your thresholds. Now, 5% of 12K is $600 dollars that you would be taking out of your own pocket even though it seems like it would be beneficial to the company. Another example is someone who never gets insurance or accessories for the phone through the store. You could have a perfect pitch and do everything right, but still they refuse. You still have to sell them the phone and not only does BeMobile make money off the phone that you just sold, but they get to keep more of your money because you fell below the your thresholds.
Their response would be, "You just need to sell better," which is a joke because roughly 1 in 3 are make accessories, 1 in 3 make insurance, 1 in 5 make non-phone activated lines, and 1 in 5 make new line activations (phone and tablets). So it looks like the problems is they don't train well enough or they have unrealistic expectations.
Oh but wait, the benefits they give you are a Dave Ramsey course to help your finances.....that you won't be getting.
Last, but not least promotions. Salaries are very transparent. You can find out what anyone is making. Becoming a store leader often means more hours for a minimum pay increase, which actually means less per hour than sales reps. It's sad, but when I thought about how much I'd make as a store leader for the work I would put in, I was immediately turned off.
