Your Reps Aren't Guinea Pigs. Pay Them Differently During Transitions.

They overhauled their entire sales process.

They modeled the change off of another company I placed reps with before that had consistanly the highest earners I've personally ever placed.

So I knew what they were doing and they were getting coached from that same company so I was confident it would be a net-positive change.

And early signs backed that up. Things were trending in the right direction.

Butttttt as we all know, optimization takes time.

And his commission only sales team started getting nervous (and rightly so) and were telling the owner they didn't think they were going to be able to earn their typical money while these changes got ironed out.

The owner said his number one priority is taking care of his guys and asked what he thought I should do.

My answer was VERY simple:

You hired them to sell. Not to fix your system. Not to build things. Not to be guinea pigs while you figure it out.

When you hired them on, you agreed to a specific role within a specific framework.

If that framework changes? Your agreement with them needs to change too.

So pay them differently.

Flip from commission-only to paying for activity.

Base pay. Guaranteed minimums.

In exchange for them continuing to show up and put in the work while results lag behind.

That's it.

That's how you avoid turnover when you're dealing with problems that aren't on the rep to solve.

You just… pay them.

Wild concept, I know.

A few thousand dollars to float someone for a month or two?

They will love you for it. They will never want to leave.

Buuuuuuut no.

This is unfortunately WAY to rare.

From what I've seen, far too many biz owners would rather roll the dice on finding someone NEW for their offer instead of investing a little cash into the person who's already converting, already a culture fit, already bought in.

It's 10x more expensive to go find someone new.

And what's even more loony is when companies try to gaslight reps by saying crap like:

"Well if they don't wanna stick it out with us, they're not here for the right reasons. We need people who believe in our mission."

Brooooo.

Give me a break.

Nobody cares about your mission more than they care about feeding their family.

That IS their mission, you doo-doo head.

You want loyalty during a rocky transition?

Compensate for it.

If the way they were making money before is no longer available (through no fault of their own), bridge the gap.

Simple quid pro quo.

Take care of your people, or watch 'em go work for your competitor.