Before I start, let’s start with a simple presumption, “Sales people want to make money. The harder they work, and more success they have, the more money they should make.”
This is NOT the premise the entire Inside Sales Dept. follows. If you are looking for the premise above, look elsewhere.
If you are fine putting in a decent amount of hard work, keep your head down, have no drive to make 6 figures, and instead are cool with a annual 2% raise in your base salary to have a shot in 3 years of a 10-15% raise into a higher level ISR. Sign up for this “sales” job...which really is a glorified order taker or account manager. It is a high base salary 65-75k account manager role. This is not a professional ISR role in whatever dept you end up in. The commission plans are inept.
No one “makes plan” the commission plan changed 6 times in 12 months. Most of the time we were on guarantee as management had no clue what they were doing.
If you want to receive commission, and excel into higher yearly gross...That is NOT the path 3M takes. The Inside Sales department is valued by the company at large and is receiving lots of investment, BUT it doesn’t translate into common sense.
No one exceeds plan, no one. That means the plan is BS. It is simply a salaried position and is an embarrassment for a Fortune 100 to state otherwise.
But that’s what you get when you have a national inside sales director with no sales experience. See, 3M promotes only from within so they have the same silly po-dunk, middle of the road, conservative ideas that the C-level scientist leaders above then think are sensible. Not one ISR makes above 100k with commissions. Several make 90k as a base salary, but that’s it...there’s no commission happening, maybe 5k annually...is that a sales role? You tell me.
Lastly- if you’re a woman or a minority-beware of the grade level they hire you in at...no matter how qualified you are for other roles in the company they have a strict HR rule that limits upward promotion.
Dumbest thing I saw was a co-worker, who had more qualifications than most of the competition, was not allowed to sit for interviews with hiring managers that were interested in her, because as a minority she was initially hired in at such an entry level ranking, (way below what she was worth on the open market to save money) and therefore, even though she exceeded the qualifications on the job listing and the managers wanted to interview her, she was denied the change to interview because it beyond 2 steps from her ranking. Total BS for a company that prides itself on diversity.
She would have had to leave the company and apply for the job (unlikely to get a call because they prioritize promoting from within), or wait 10 yrs before she is able to interview for the dream position that she is qualified for now...talk about a bunch of middle aged HR/c level white guys golfing on the company course thinking up policies. “But don’t worry we’ll send gobs of promotional emails and team newsletters swearing that we prioritize and appreciate our female and minority colleagues...HAHAHA!”
