Last year my wife moved from a sales engineering position to a sales rep job with her company. It has been a bit of a challenge, but she's enjoyed it, and it's been good for the family. On top of a small raise, she has a large potential upside to her income as a sales representative. I'm amazed how much money some of the people in her company make from selling software and services, and I sometimes wonder how it works out.

Recently I sent her this link about salespeople and commissions. It talks about the problems with commissions and the potential misunderstandings of what commissions actually do for our company. I know that some companies think paying salespeople flat rates and no commission is heresy. I know others that have transitioned to flat rates, including many retail companies, and they have continued to achieve high sales.

As we debated the benefits of paying commissions,  we argued a bit about the relative value of the positions. She asked me if everyone received a salary, who shoudl be paid more. I said that I thought it was easy to replace salespeople in a company, so developers. My wife countered with "it's easy to replace programmers." So for a Friday poll, I thought I'd ask the tech people out there.

Should salespeople make more than programmers?

You can assume a commission structure, or salaries for everyone, but when you look at the value each brings to a company, and the ways in which they can help grow business, which is more valuable? Which is easier to replace? Replacing a top performer in either place is probably hard, but what's your opinion?

I still stand by the idea that it's easier to replace salespeople. While I think selling is a skill, I think it's one more easily learned by a wider variety of the population. I think programming has a fundamental mindset that is hard to teach.

Or maybe it's a larger number of people would be more willing to spend their days trying to sell something than sitting in a cubicle writing code.

Steve Jones

The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.

• Watch the Windows Media Podcast - 22.0MB WMV
• Watch the iPod Video Podcast - 19.2MB MP4
• Watch the MP3 Audio Podcast - 3.9MB MP3

The podcast feeds are available at sqlservercentral.mevio.com. You can also follow Steve Jones on Twitter:

Today's podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com. They have a great version of Message in a Bottle if you want to check it out.

I really appreciate and value feedback on the podcasts. Let us know what you like, don't like, or even send in ideas for the show. If you'd like to comment, post something here. The boss will be sure to read it.