Negotiating a Great Basic Salary
When you work in sales, negotiating a great basic salary is of the utmost importance.
Although you will be aiming to hit your targets month after month and take home a stonking great pay packet full of commission, there may be months where your contracts fall through.By negotiating a good basic salary at the beginning of your new employment, you can at least rest assured that those quiet months will not see you begging on the streets.Show You Are Motivated
Employers still want to make sure that you are motivated to hit your targets though, so when you start salary negotiation it is important to remember that. Your company will want to pay you the least they can to get the results they require, so essentially, the better you put forward your case for a high basic salary, the more they will expect from you.If you are attending interviews through recruitment agencies, it is important that you make clear your salary expectations from the beginning. There is no point thinking you can get to the second or third interview stage and then just slip in what basic salary you expect. They will think you are a chancer and neither the agency nor the potential employer will be at all impressed.
If you have applied to a vacancy that was advertised, you will already probably know the potential starting salary. By all means try to negotiate a higher basic salary, but be aware that you have applied to a position that may have a limit.
What Should You Say At Interview?
So, what do you say when you are in that interview room and the interviewer says ‘What are your basic salary expectations?’ This is the question that you need to be prepared for because there is no chance if you cough and splutter now. In all likelihood, you have already discussed your billing potential – the type of targets you have achieved in your career so far. The company will probably have done their research and may already know details about you.Make sure you have all your facts and figures to hand – know how many sales you made, what your targets where and whether you achieved them. Think of the poor hapless types on the Dragon’s Den that don’t know how many sales they’ve made or what their financial predictions are – don’t be like that! See yourself as a product and know your sales figures inside out, then you can reap the rewards.
