Why So Many Fail in Commission Home Improvement Sales

Prefer To Watch: Here’s The Video

Here’s a job where you don’t need a college degree, don’t need any specific experience, can be any age or gender, and you can make $150,000 to $200,000 a year—and if you're great, even more than that. Also, the job is totally fun. You're not stuck in an office, and every day you get to meet somebody new and see how they live in their own homes. You're out and about, visiting new areas and cities, and you don’t have to put up with any BS from a supervisor watching over everything you do and trying to micromanage you.

The Challenge of Staying in the Game

Oh, by the way, out of a training class of 8 people, 2 or 3 of them are still standing 90 days later. If you take 9 of the three people that make it 90 days, 4 of them will make it past the year. So why is the turnover so high? That sounds horrible. Well, it’s horrible for everyone but the 5 out of the roughly 30 that made it after a year. They get all the good stuff I mentioned above.

I have been training and selling home improvements for 35 years, and these are the real numbers. To be fair, every person I hired, I told the truth to and left it up to them to figure out if they wanted to get into this. The good part is, if you do it right, it is one of the best jobs in the world if you love sales. This is not meant to discourage you but to wake you up if necessary so you can be the 10% who make it. Anything you do that pays well—whether it's the NBA or becoming a self-made millionaire—the money goes to the top performers. The only one who controls whether you will be one of them is you, and it starts with you making the decision.

1. Not Realizing How Hard It’s Going to Be

The first reason people fail is that they don’t realize how hard it’s really going to be. It should be obvious, but if you can make $150,000 or $200,000 a year, by definition, it’s hard. Today, you get paid based on the difficulty of replacing you. If you do something easy that everyone can do, like flipping a burger, they pay you minimum wage. If you do something not everybody can do, they’re going to pay you more money. If you do something that only a few people can do, they’re going to pay you a lot of money.

On paper, it sounds good—you just go to people's homes, talk to them, show them what you do, and they buy. The reality is, it’s a lot harder than that. By not realizing how hard this is, people don’t put in the effort or have the right expectations of what they’re going to have to do to make that money. The reality in life is that nothing worthwhile is easy, and nothing that pays you a lot of money is easy.

People are always trying to find something that doesn’t exist: easy money with no work. I always tell people, if you can find an easier place to make $150,000 a year with less BS and less hassle, tell me and I’ll be there with you. The reality is, there isn’t one. Again, we’re talking about making over six figures in this job. It’s not that hard to make $60,000 a year doing this, but I don’t think making that much money justifies the effort like driving and night and weekend work. But why would you want to make $60,000 a year if you could make 2 or 3 times that amount doing the same amount of physical activity but doing it right?

A Trap of Initial Success

Here’s one trap that not realizing it’s going to be hard creates. First of all, all new people sell. They don’t know what they’re doing, they don’t know what they’re selling, but they’re excited, and since sales is just a transfer of enthusiasm, they’re enthusiastic and make sales. They and their managers then think they know how to do this. In many cases, they even stop learning and improving because they think they are “there.”

The reality is, after 30 or 90 days, that initial enthusiasm dies down. If you don’t have a strong foundation, you won’t have what it takes to do this consistently enough to have a career. If you fool yourself into thinking this job is going to be easy, once you run into adversity after the first 90 days, you get frustrated, and a lot of people quit here. If you’re not ready for it to be hard and willing to pay the price, you realize it too late, and the adversity kills you. You don’t have the persistence necessary to put in the time, blood, sweat, and tears needed to be successful.

2. Failing to Study and Learn

The second reason people aren’t successful is that they don’t understand or aren’t willing to put in the time to study and learn how to do this right. The key is to work on yourself with self-improvement to get better and learn how to do this ASAP. If you wait too long, you may not be able to afford to continue working there.

You have to study and learn how to be good at this type of sales from the beginning. If you didn’t realize how hard this would be, then you’re not ready to put in the work. This is where proper commission sales training comes in. Another reason new and established salespeople don’t practice self-improvement is due to one word: ego. They think, “Well, I’m already a great salesperson. I don’t have to put in the work.” Wrong. Unless you have made a living doing this specific type of sales, you don’t know how.

The Role of Ego

This job is different from any other type of sales job you’ve had. You’re walking into a total stranger’s home, meeting them for a couple of hours, and getting them to spend tens of thousands of dollars in one visit. You need people skills from your other sales jobs, but this is different. You might be talking to an 80-year-old widow in the afternoon and a bank president in the evening, asking for money in one visit.

For experienced sales reps with a decade of work behind them, thinking “I’m already there” is a mistake. You are never “there.” If you stop learning, it’s like saying, “Well, I don’t want to make any more money than I am right now.” A simple test to see how good you are in this type of business is to look at your paycheck. That tells you how good you are. The good part is that you can change your paycheck by becoming better.

With commission sales training and self-improvement resources like YouTube videos, tapes, books, or speaking to successful people in the field, the tools are all there for you. But you have to make the effort and actually implement them to get better. You’re not making enough money because you’re not good enough yet. You can’t depend on your company’s training alone. You have to put in your own time. Have the mentality of someone who is self-employed.

3. Not Believing in the Product

The third reason people don’t make it—and it’s not something a lot of people talk about—is that in their hearts, they don’t believe in their product or what they’re charging for it. You sell windows for $1,500 or $2,000 apiece, but in your mind, you’re thinking, “Well, they can go and buy these for $400 at Home Depot.” You sell kitchens for $40,000 or $50,000, but you know they can go to IKEA and buy cabinets for $6,000.

Understanding Product Value

The issue may be that you don’t understand the difference in product quality, or you’re comparing the intrinsic value to the price you’re selling for. Take windows: You might sell them for $22,000, but knowing the company has been around for 50 years, offers a lifetime warranty, and has stellar reviews gives peace of mind that justifies the higher price. With commission sales training, you can develop the belief in your product necessary to sell with confidence.

If you don’t believe in the value and quality of your product, you won’t have it in your heart to be as aggressive as needed. You can’t transfer enthusiasm or truly feel you’re helping the customer. If you feel like you’re lying to them, you’re lying to yourself every day, and that’s not good for your soul. If you can’t get past what you’re selling, it’s time to get another job. That’s with love because you’ll never make it.

Conclusion: Be Prepared and Believe

So again, accept it’s hard and be ready to pay your dues. Always work on making yourself better with ongoing commission sales training and self-improvement. Lastly, have a genuine belief that you are improving someone’s quality of life when you sell to them.