Paid on Comission
“When you get 60 percent of the people on the list to come in and have their portraits taken-we pay you 10 percent commission. If you can get 90% of the people on the list to come in, we pay you 35% commission.” The Manager smiled his best used car salesman smile and winked. “That’s pretty good money.”
“What percentage do your photographers normally earn?” I say, all too familiar with mythical commission pay.
“Well, I’m sure that you can get at least 60% of the names on the list to come in.” The Manger says, a little less confident than he was a moment ago.
“When was the last someone got 90% of the people to come in?” I say.
“Most of the photographers get about 40% of the people to keep their appointments.” He says reluctantly.
“And what percentage is that in commission?”
“3 percent.”
You won’t find people earning commission in grocery stores, gas stations, tire stores, or restaurants. You don’t pay commission on things people are going to buy anyway. You pay commission on things people need to be talked into buying-things like cars, houses, insurance, and portraits.
I’ve worked for a number of Companies that have commission numbers that sound really good on paper-40%, 50%, or even 60% for hitting certain numbers-numbers that are pretty much impossible to hit. At one company we had to get people to keep their appointments. Sounds easy enough, right?
What I didn’t know was that many of these people made appointments just to get away from the demon spawn PreSeller who latched onto them like a leech and wouldn’t let them go until they forked over six dollars and made an appointment. We had three hundred plus appointments every week-and we only shot for three days a week. Getting 40% of these people thorugh the door was a mircle. 20% was closer to the norm-1 percent commission there.
One Company paid on the sales Average, not the sales Total, again the top numbers were impressive, something like 20% for a hundred dollar sales average-this was back in the day when a 50 dollar average was considered good. Needless to say I never got that 20% comission check and I don’t know of any one else who did either. Paying on the Average was especially infuritating at the end of the day when three Nonbuyers would walk in and tell us that our Office had told them they had to come in-even if they didn’t want to buy any portraits. This is how pipe bombs find their way into Corporate Home Offices.
The Current Company’s Comission tops out at 10% after you sale a few thousands dollars worth of portraits in a day. I have had a few days where I hit the top Comission, but not too many. At least it is possible-if you are at a Good Shoot, have a Full Appointment Sheet, and everyone is in a buying mood. It helps to have a good Passer as well.
One of the big problems with most Company pay scales is that it is different for PreSellers, Photographers, and Passers-the three parts of the Company that actually come into contact with the real world. I have no idea how The Lab, The Managers, and the Grand Poobahs are paid. But I’m pretty sure it is not based on Comission-at least not the kind of comission we get.
One of the Major Assembly Line Portrait companies pays stright comission-I didn’t last too long there. The problem with this kind of pay struture is that it makes The Hard Sell the only logical way to do business-while The Company wants to lie to everyone and tell them we do nothing but Soft Selling-if they dare to mention selling at all. Mostly they chat up the Freebies and how they Don’t Have To Do Anything-which is fine, so long as they tell them at some point that our business is selling portraits.
The problem with commission and portraits is that it isn’t that much of an incentive. Sure it’s fun to make a lot of money at a Good Shoot-but it totally sucks to make nothing but the daily salary at all the Bad Shoots. There is just not that much that a Photographer or Passer can do to force someone to buy portraits-though I have heard a number of complaints over the years from people who say they were forced.
Most people have become real experts at saying NO over the past couple of decades, so it is little wonder that the two or three people a saleperson runs across that can’t say No ends up with a large package. Besides, once you are out of the hypnotic control of the Master Salesperson, you can always call in and cancel the order. Which some people do, but not that many.
The key to success is sincerity-once you can fake that, you’ve got it made. The Subject should feel positive about the Portrait Taking Experience, but most people don’t. We can flatter them, both with poses, lights, and backgrounds and with kind words once they view their portraits.
People are used to getting customized products-whether this is music, videos, images-we live in a world of endless possibilities. But we also live in a world with a limit on our most valuable resource-time. Yes you can use Photoshop to make an image look like it was painted by Van Gogh or Rembrandt or Jackson Pollock-but we don’t have the time to explore these endless possibilities with you.
And because we are paid on Commission, it is hard not to send out that little message-We just want your money. Which is why so many people walk in the door and say-We’re just here for The Freebie. You can guess what kind of customer service they get.