I like many other business owners believe at times I have no choice but to pay sales commission. It’s how my industry works, it’s what salespeople expect, and sometimes I feel it’s the only way to motivate them.

I also understand commission distances salespeople from other employees and sometimes the result is a lot of animosity and resentment, leading to inevitable conflicts. At times, being the owner, I have to constantly mediate disputes among the salespeople over who has to split which sale, who handles which customers, and who gets the leads coming into the store.

To give you some background info…here’s how I run my store. My employees are each on a different salary but are all on the same commission structure. Because I have a brick and mortar and sometimes there are more salespeople then there are customers—this is how it goes:

1. Each sales associate is given a certain amount of floor time. For example, we are open 10am to 6pm—and on a Monday I usually have 3 sales associates here. Each sales associate is given 2 hours of floor time—during the other hours they are either on lunch or at break. This way if Sue has floor time—anyone walking through the door is waited on by Sue…whether it is a watch battery, a ten thousand dollar sale, or a free jewelry cleaning.
2. If Sue is busy anyone else can help whoever enters the store.

Now the problems:

1. It is Sue’s floor time and she is changing a watch battery for the customer. The customer finds something in the case he/she would like to look at—a different sales associate comes to help the customer and the customer decides she wants to purchase the item.
2. Sue and the other associate are in disagreement over who gets the sale. The other associate feels she put all her effort into making the sale because Sue was in the repair department but Sue argues it’s her floor time and she is the one who gets the sale.

So, as you can see I have to constantly mediate disputes—lately I made it very clear that sales associates need to settle disputes among themselves and I’ve stressed teamwork. I’ve told them if management is to get involved any decision made by management is final.  Because of this some of my sales associates have learned to work together and split sales but some have distance themselves from others.

Have you ever started new salespeople on what they expect: salary and commission. After a couple of years—go to the person and say, “You’ve been here for two years and I want you to stay. How about I buy out your commission and raise your salary, so you won’t loose any income and in return you’ll get stability?”