[deltaqueue]

"I'm not sure I follow your argument you should be directly (financially) rewarded for the additional effort in the larger deal. I've known several sales folks who chase many small deals simply because they're a lot easier to manage, require less time to close, and by collecting as many of them as possible, they're able to maximize their commissions."

What's the difference? In either scenario, you are rewarded proportionately to how much effort you put into landing one large deal or multiple small deals.

"My thought is that, just like in every other aspect of the business, your top players will be your highest paid as part of the normal compensation process--and those top people should be the ones closing the bigger deals. Just because you don't get cut a check for that specific deal doesn't mean there wouldn't be rewards for doing so."

I suspect commissions simply originated from sales reps demanding recognition for their efforts. Bonus structures and salary positioning through systems like FogCreek assume you have fair and competent managers who recognize and reward effort. Sales teams may not always present this luxury, so reps may simply demand these commissions to cover their bases.

[bcrescimanno]

There isn't a difference; your post (to me) implied that people working on more complex deals should be more highly rewarded. My argument is more that removal of commission-based compensation doesn't necessarily remove the concept of reward for hard work. All it does is decouple it from each individual sale. Better people who work better / smarter (should) still be compensated appropriately.

I completely agree with your assessment of sales commissions elsewhere--and I think we've all seen enough of a share of unfair, incompetent management to understand the rationale. That said, I also agree that there is some serious baggage that comes with commission-based compensation and it's worth a look to dump it.