Hey yall! Looking for some advice on a sticky job situation. Lmk what you think of the below story: For the past 12 weeks, I’ve been working a commission-only sales role at a young but promising full-service demand gen agency. The offer is genuinely interesting — they use ads, AI, and automation to guarantee qualified meetings for their clients. All leads are inbound. No prospecting required. I get 10–15 marketing-qualified meetings booked on my calendar every week. Commission starts at $1,500 per deal and goes up from there. But after ~120 hours of calls, prep, follow-ups, and training, I’ve only closed two deals — earning around $3K in total commission. A little over half the leads I meet with turn out not to be sales qualified. And of the ones who are, my close rate hasn’t been where I want it — for a mix of reasons. The company is open to evolving, but the founder is a marketer by trade, not a salesperson. That means he sees every MQL as an SQL (because he's a marketer), and expects every SQL to close (because he's a founder). I’m hitting a ceiling that feels systemic. I’m sharing this because I’d love to hear from anyone who's walked this path: How do you know when it’s time to double down, pivot, or walk away? Any advice or perspective is appreciated.
From experience, if you start creating changes in departments to have a better PMF and a clear GTM strategy, you should shift to a hybrid base + commission and ask for a clear mandate if you believe you really can make a change, this was a game changer for me with my current client, once I delivered a lot of value across multiple departments and I pushed my ideas for change, I switched to the hybrid approach with clear executive power and mandate, then I could easily double down and lock in
Thats good feedback. If what I'm working on will improve marketing or CS in some way, then its not quite a commission-only role anymore. And it shows value beyond the closed business (which I am not achieving at a rate either of us are happy with right now). It may be a tough sell bc from his perspective, I am not closing much, so why increase investment in me? But if we're having that conversation then we're really having an exit conversation.
It would be walk away if they are not receptive to feedback and change of funnel, but as soon as you jump into consultancy I would advice going on a retainer
I appreciate this. The more I think & talk about this, the more it sounds like a walk away. We finally added another rep last week. I am still interested to see how their performance compares with mine. And if they have the same struggles. I'm meeting with the CEO on Friday to decide what our next step is. i told him initially we'd have to make a decision either way at the 12 week mark (this week)
A commission only sales role for a start up sounds like a time waster with little potential to me. I’d keep it but only while you look for jobs full time.
I think the best piece of context to add here is that I started this year with 2 commission-only sales jobs. This one and another one. The other one has already converted to part-time + commission & I've closed enough deals to 2x my income from the previous quarter. So all signs are pointing to walking away right now
You’ll find something even better Sebastien V.. Hope the conversation goes well. MQL does not always equal SQL.
On a quick note, idk if allowed here, where does one find such commission based opps?
Asking out of curiosity cuz mine came through a friend of mine
I knew this CEO ahead of time. He did some pro bono work for a RevOps agency I was running at the time. The other one was me doing cold outreach to my old competitors after my business went under lol
Sebastien V. this seems like the right thread to say, we're all happy to keep an eye out for you 💪 Glad to DM about your ideal next steps, if they become next steps!
