A business case for aligning our high-ticket closers' pay with the value they create — keeping the base and raising the sales commission. Built for leadership. Every figure ties to our own numbers or a cited industry source.
📊 Visual one-pager (share this): https://enckequity.github.io/inside-sales-comp-benchmarks/
Keep the $75k base, cut nothing, and raise the sales commission from 0.6% to ~2% — taking a solid closer from today's ~$104k to about $165k–$195k, paid only on sales they actually book.
Each closer brings in roughly $4.8M in sales and ~$1.3M in gross profit a year. Today they earn a $75k base + a 0.6% commission ≈ $103,800 — about 8% of the gross they generate, where comparable high-ticket dealers structure sales pay closer to 20–30%, with 25% the most common rate. This is a measured step toward that, in a way that's variable, easy to administer, and still well within healthy selling-cost limits.
One closer. Conservative assumptions, with our real margins alongside (see Assumptions):
| Conservative | Likely (our real margins) | |
|---|---|---|
| Sales / closer / year (~$400k/mo) | $4,800,000 | $4,800,000 |
| Gross margin used | 20% (deliberate haircut) | ~27% (our build sheets) |
| Gross profit / closer / year | $960,000 | ~$1,296,000 |
| Current comp (base + 0.6%) | $103,800 | $103,800 |
| Total pay as % of the gross they generate | 10.8% | 8.0% |
→ Full economics & sensitivity
The dealer standard is a commission of 20–30% of front-end gross profit, 25% most common — confirmed across auto, RV, powersports, and farm/heavy equipment. The best parallel: Farm Equipment magazine quotes named equipment-dealer principals paying "25% of gross on new, 30% on used." (All citations: sources.md.)
| Reference point | Sales pay as % of gross |
|---|---|
| Pine Hill today (total pay ÷ gross) | ~8% |
| Powersports | ~15% |
| Auto / RV | 20–30% |
| Farm / heavy equipment | 25–30% |
Our commission rate (0.6% of sales) was set when volume was lower — this brief is about catching up to where the rest of the industry sits.
- Base: $75,000 — unchanged. Nothing is cut.
- Raise the sales commission from 0.6% to ~2% (band 1.5%–2.5%). Paid only on sales booked — $0 cost on a slow month.
- It rewards production. Because it's a % of sales, every additional unit — including the high-margin factory options (36.95% vs. 26.55% on the base unit) — adds to the closer's pay and the company's gross together.
| Commission rate | Commission ($4.8M sales) | Total comp |
|---|---|---|
| 0.6% (today) | $28,800 | $103,800 |
| 1.5% of sales | $72,000 | $147,000 |
| 2.0% of sales (recommended) | $96,000 | $171,000 |
| 2.5% of sales | $120,000 | $195,000 |
| (25% of gross — full dealer standard) | $324,000 | $399,000 |
Hybrid reps — inbound + outbound: since closers work company leads and self-source deals, the same plan carries a split rate — 2% on company (inbound) leads, 4% on self-sourced (outbound) deals, plus a draw during ramp. The premium is funded by the lead cost you don't spend on self-sourced sales, so it's self-funding; outbound is additive, and every ~$1.2M a rep hunts adds ~$48k.
→ The plan in detail · Questions leadership will ask · What this role pays elsewhere
Questions leadership will reasonably ask (full answers here)
| Question | The short answer |
|---|---|
| Do we really know our margins well enough? | Yes — they're on every build sheet (26.55% base, 36.95% options). And the commission is a % of sales — a figure we track exactly — so it needs no margin calculation to run, and stays affordable at 18–27%. |
| Isn't $75k already solid pay? | It is — with the 0.6% commission a closer earns |
| Leads are inbound and expensive — does that change it? | A fair point, built in: 2% of sales is a closing rate, not a hunter's rate. And keeping a proven closer protects the return on our lead spend — they convert more of those paid leads. |
These drive every number; real figures only strengthen the case (our actual margins beat the conservative model):
- Sales
$400k / closer / month ($4.8M/year) - Gross margin ~27% actual; modeled at 20% to be safe
- Current comp $75k base + 0.6%-of-sales commission ≈ $103,800
- Lead-flow cost: leadership's number — plug it into the cost-of-sale view; the case holds even with heavy lead spend.
All scenarios: data/scenarios.csv. Sensitivity tables: economics.md.
Internal decision aid built from our own figures plus public industry benchmarks (sources · methodology). Not legal, tax, or accounting advice — validate against final unit economics before adoption.