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Longer stick smaller carrot: salespeople have worked harder and stretched further to reach their sales goals, and for many the reward has been disappointing.

Article Excerpt
It's been a tough few years for service centers--especially service center salespeople. Data from the latest Metal Center News Sales Compensation Survey reveals that total compensation for outside salespeople, as an industry-wide median, has seen little or no growth since 2000.

Sales professionals have experienced a double whammy: With the economy and the metals market in the doldrums for the past three years, salespeople have had to work harder than ever to stem the losses. Yet when revenues decline, commission-based compensation follows, so they've seen little reward for their extra effort.

Though compensation varies widely by region and company size, the typical (median) outside salesperson today earns approximately $62,000 per year in total compensation, including salary, commission and bonus--about the same as reported in the last MCN salary survey taken in mid-2000.

Inside salespeople have fared somewhat better. Faced with the need to cut costs, service centers appear to have shifted more sales-related duties to their inside sales staffs. Though the typical (median) inside salesperson earns about 24 percent less than an outside salesperson--or $46,667 in total sales, commission and bonus--inside salespeople have seen steady growth in income during the five-year period from 1998-2003, averaging around 2.7 percent per year, according to MCN survey data. (See Exhibit 1)

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HUSTLE PAYS OFF

Individual aptitude and initiative also appear to play a surprisingly big part in how much a salesperson can earn. Service center executives were asked to report total sales compensation for high, average and low achievers among both inside and outside salespeople. In both categories, the high achievers took home nearly double the income of the low achievers, regardless of the size or location of the company. Comparing these responses for high and low achievers should help service center management identify the high and low ends of the current compensation range. (See Exhibits...

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