---
title: "Which Matters More: Base Salary or Commission?"
description: "Many believe that a higher base salary means earning more, but those who rely solely on their base salary will never become wealthy. In fact, base salary is just a simple indicator of your ability and a basic living guarantee. Salespeople who depend on base salary are often struggling, while those who don't care about it are the truly impressive ones. If given three choices, which would you pick: A: 2000 base salary with 4% commission, B: 3000 base salary with 2% commission, or C: no base salary with 10% commission?"
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2016-05-20"
language: "en"
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---

# Which Matters More: Base Salary or Commission?

> Many believe that a higher base salary means earning more, but those who rely solely on their base salary will never become wealthy. In fact, base salary is just a simple indicator of your ability and a basic living guarantee. Salespeople who depend on base salary are often struggling, while those who don't care about it are the truly impressive ones. If given three choices, which would you pick: A: 2000 base salary with 4% commission, B: 3000 base salary with 2% commission, or C: no base salary with 10% commission?

Many people believe that the higher the base salary, the more they earn, but they never consider that those who truly rely on base salary will never become wealthy in their lifetime.
In fact, base salary is just a simple indicator of your ability, merely a basic living guarantee.
Salespeople who rely on base salary are often doing poorly, while those who don't care about base salary are the truly impressive ones.
"If you were given three choices, which would you pick:
A: 2000 base salary, 4% commission.
B: 3000 base salary, 2% commission. C: No base salary, 10% commission.
The results are:
Those who choose B are average salespeople, those who choose A are better salespeople, and those who choose C are the impressive ones.
**How are impressive salespeople made?**
1. They don't fuss over the amount of base salary or temporary gains and losses.
If you go for an interview and have two options:
A is a small company with limited products, offering a high base salary plus low commission.
B is a large company with good products, offering a low base salary plus high commission.
Would you choose the small company you don't like just because of 500 yuan?
2. They do the work first, then make demands.
Some salespeople, after a few years in sales, consider themselves experienced and inflate their worth. Before even joining a company, they make various demands to the boss, but once they actually join, they accomplish little. Because of the gap between expectations and reality, they end up fleeing in defeat.
Truly impressive salespeople never make demands first; instead, they do their job down-to-earth, prove themselves, and then make their requests, which earns them the boss's respect.
3. They put effort beyond work hours and don't complain about overtime or hardship.
Honestly, in the sales industry, except for office workers, anyone who talks about an 8-hour workday is a joke. Retailers open at 5 or 6 in the morning, and salespeople running business have no set hours. If you constantly dwell on your hard life and long working hours, how can you focus on winning customers' hearts? Truly impressive salespeople never waste time on such trivial matters.
4. They learn to make trade-offs and give up some customers who aren't theirs.
The more customers, the better, but not every customer is a key focus. If you have no priorities, you might lose more customers. Customers are gods, and we should value them, but we can't satisfy all their demands; otherwise, we spoil them and bear the consequences.
Truly impressive salespeople are not led by customers and bravely say no to them!
5. Being a good person is more important than doing things well, and integrity is more important than making money.
If you agree to meet a customer at 8 o'clock but arrive at 10, even if your company is impressive, the customer's willingness to cooperate will diminish. To persuade a customer, you tell a small lie; if the customer doesn't find out, fine, but if they do, the consequences are unimaginable. Truly impressive salespeople never lose their principles to persuade customers; being trustworthy is the foundation for deep cooperation.
If you've been in sales for a year and haven't made money, it's due to lack of experience.
If you've been in sales for three years and haven't made money, it's due to lack of pressure.
If you've been in sales for ten years and haven't made money, it's due to lack of know-how.
If you've been in sales all your life and haven't made money, it's a waste of time.
May every salesperson earn money impressively and be an impressive salesperson!
**Further Reading**
**The Gap Between a 3K Salary and an 8K Salary Is Not Just Money!**
There was a girl earning 3,000 yuan a month whose articles were full of errors. The boss slammed the table in anger, but she retorted, "**With a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan, what more do you expect?** " Pondering her words is interesting. It's like buying a cheap item that breaks in two days, and then comforting yourself: "I spent so little, what more can I expect?" Of course, her implication was, "**If you paid me 8,000, I'd do it well.** "
**But the problem is, the boss pays for what he gets. You must first demonstrate the value of 8,000 while earning 3,000, and then the boss will be willing to pay.**
When I first joined, my salary was also 3,000, but it rose to 8,000 in the second month. Because every time the boss needed copy, I not only wrote it well but also provided two or more versions for him to choose: one as per his requirements, and others as my suggested alternatives.
At that time, I didn't think about the trick; I just loved writing and would ponder how to make it better. Also, because I cherished my words, I felt that anything I wrote reflected my personal brand, so I was very careful. In my view, it was natural, but after mentoring over twenty Chinese graduate students, I realized this attitude is rare. Those who studied Chinese for seven more years than average wouldn't even look twice at their own writing, with glaring errors in text, punctuation, and grammar, and no knowledge of the background, let alone caring about layout or matching images.
They care about whether they need to work overtime, but those who want to do good writing don't consider that. The effort to polish text is endless—otherwise, Cao Xueqin wouldn't have "worked overtime" for ten years and still not finished "Dream of the Red Chamber." Ask yourself, isn't it the same for any job? Those who judge a job by "whether overtime is needed" are not the talent enterprises need, because their attitude is "done" rather than "done well."
For example, near the McDonald's near my company, there's an auntie who watches over bicycles. In summer, she covers all the bikes with plastic sheeting she brings. When customers come to pick up their bikes, she smiles and wipes the seat with a damp cloth to cool it down. She never asks, but many people voluntarily give her an extra yuan and thank her repeatedly. **The difference between this auntie and other bike watchers is the gap between "done well" and "done"—in money, the gap is double; in sense of achievement, it's immeasurable.**
I fully understand the thoughts of some newcomers: "**I don't plan to stay long, so why work so hard?** " Actually, who stays at one company for life? Moving to better companies and better jobs is everyone's journey. The difference is that excellent people lay solid foundations wherever they go, so they rise higher and higher.
Becoming a CEO of a Fortune 500 company is probably the aspiration of every professional, but for newcomers, small companies have their advantages. Big companies are like Cai Jing's kitchen, where tasks are so specialized that a dedicated cook is assigned to chop scallions. You might not get a chance to touch meat for a long time, let alone learn to make a whole bun. In small companies, human resources are tight, and with the same 3,000 salary, they won't just have you chop scallions, so you must quickly learn to make buns, and many kinds—**of course, provided you're willing to learn.**
If your first job is at a big company, while celebrating, remind yourself that the company sees only your brilliant student days; in the workplace, you are still a zero, which could become positive or negative. Many people mistakenly equate the strength of their organization with their own ability—this is why some former CCTV hosts are quickly forgotten. Bai Yansong once said that if you put a dog on CCTV every day, it becomes a famous dog. But without the CCTV stage, it will soon revert to a stray dog.
"**Nothing can be taken away, only karma follows.** " This "karma" can be interpreted as: **one is the skill to do well**, **the other is the attitude to want to do well**. With this "karma," you won't worry about finding a stage. **But this "karma" doesn't come for free—when your monthly salary is 3,000, you should work as if it's 8,000. The 5,000 you haven't earned is the tuition for cultivating this "karma."**
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