Help! My Manager is Cheating Me!

I recently got an email from a sales professional, working in a heavy industry B2B environment, asking about compensation. It illustrates how companies cheat sales professionals and get them to work on the cheap.

I'm sure it's true with any sales organization, there is a disconnect between what management thinks and what sales thinks is fair and just with regards to compensation. My management has put a bonus plan in place, with bonuses are paid by group rather than by individual, with five people in the group.
Sales has never obtained quota or received a full bonus as presented in the plan. In fact, we don't even get close; in the last half year we didn't even make 50 percent of quota. Sales would prefer a commission plan that's specific to their efforts. However, requests for a draw and an individual commission have been rebuffed.

What you've got there is a clever plan to avoid paying bonuses. Setting the quotas too high to be achieved is standard (evil) sales manager practice, but the clever part is calculating quotas based upon group performance. That way you end up blaming your coworkers, rather than management, when you don't get paid what you're worth

The only guidance I can give you is to find another job. You are working for management that doesn't respect the sales function and has no intention of paying bonuses. Every day that you continue to work there, you are being played for a chump.

Sorry, but that's the truth. If you need help finding a better sales job, try this post: "Find a Top Sales Job".

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