Related Posts
Conversation Starter
Alright people what's your out?
Which is good to join..Publicis sapient or LTI?
Additional Posts in Salary Negotiations
Anonymous User
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
Coach
Firstly - hearty thumbs up for making the jump, this is huge.
For negotiation - you should absolutely ask for more based on your opportunity cost of stepping away from your current salary. Basically phrase it as “I love the sound of this job, but could you increase the base to minimize the pain of stepping away”. What they will offer you (if anything) is a temporary increase on the base while you get up to speed. If the role is $75k with OTE of $150k, they may give you an extra $5-10k up front for the first few months, but no commission (so you’re at risk of losing money in the short term if you do hit the ground running).
I work for a major dental company and we will give starters a fixed salary until they hit a certain level, the drop to full commission. The risk being that if you don’t hit that level by the agreed upon date, you won’t be in the job for long. But you have time to get yourself settled.
Subject Expert
Definitely negotiate, though you need to be mindful of total comp over salary. Sales salaries are always intentionally weighted towards attainment and commission. Your salary isn't meant to be enough, any sales rep just making salary won't have that job for very long.
The two important questions are, what is your OTE (on target earnings, or salary + commission at 100% attainment), and how realistic are your targets. A seasoned sales organization will have targets that are lofty but attainable, newer organization may not have all that worked out yet, which means that you would be in for a period of adjustment.
Sales roles are generally more lucrative than straight salary roles, as you are on the team that is directly responsible for bringing in revenue. That higher comp comes with more risk, but also should come with the ability to well overachieve.
Having been on both sides of the fence, I would not take a sales role that paid similar or slighty more than my salaried role unless there is a crystal clear path to move into a significantly better paying role in short time. The stress isn't worth it without significant upside.
Why do you to leave your steady job of 10 years that pays $100,000 per year where you don't have to sell anything to switch to a sales role that pays $25,000 less per year and what if you're not a great Salesperson or they fire you from the new role within months of starting ?
It would be good to negotiate but it's conceivable they won't budge very much. They obviously want to make sure someone is incentivized to produce, so they'll want to keep that base relatively low. What you might do is run some numbers and ascertain how realistic you think the commissions will be and make your decision based on that.
If it’s same company and your being told you are moving to this role it’s worth to ask. But if this is a choice you need to understand what salaries are for a sales related job and what that pays. If you have a high paying career and choose a lower paying career no company is going to base your salary on what you used to make.