How realistic is it to make 50k in this job (kitchen & bathroom sales)?

SnowDrop

I live in Greater London area and currently make just over £24,000 pa. Recently started interviewing and came across a few sales roles offering 50K or more pay pa.

Sounds too good to be true? It would be great to hear from anyone who has first hand experience with these roles.

I am interested in sales and have the drive for it. I am not an office-person. Currently work in high-pressure sales role. The issue is, I don`t want to leave my current job (paying £24K and no commission payed directly to staff) and end up in a low paying job for a long time.

What is the basic pay these Kitchen showrooms offer? And how much does a sales assistant earn realistically after the completion of training? With paying mortgage and bills I would be taking a huge risk switching. I could probably manage on a lower pay for about 4-5 months but not longer.

Can I realistically make £50K or more a year?

I would like do double my salary but don`t want to get burned.

TELLIT01

You say you have started interviewing.  Didn't you ask the question during the interview?

macman

If you are sales-driven and in a 'high pressure sales role' at present, then why are you earning so little? With London weighting, you are earning little more than a basic clerical wage.
If I was interviewing for these posts, the first question I would expect the candidate to ask is 'what level of sales do I have to achieve in order to get  the advertised £50k? What is the basic salary?'. 
But you can assume that the advertised salary is the maximum that one salesperson could possibly earn. The majority will be on far less. The basic wage will probably be half that, but if you don't generate sufficient commission, then you will be out before the end of your probationary period.

74jax

What is the basic and is commission capped?

SnowDrop

macman said:

If you are sales-driven and in a 'high pressure sales role' at present, then why are you earning so little? With London weighting, you are earning little more than a basic clerical wage.
If I was interviewing for these posts, the first question I would expect the candidate to ask is 'what level of sales do I have to achieve in order to get  the advertised £50k? What is the basic salary?'. 
But you can assume that the advertised salary is the maximum that one salesperson could possibly earn. The majority will be on far less. The basic wage will probably be half that, but if you don't generate sufficient commission, then you will be out before the end of your probationary period.

I was making nearly £30K with OT, we were also forced to take a pay cut in 2020 for a year which has now been made permanent. I just checked my payslips from January and February 2019 (!) and I am in disbelief to see how much I made then, compared to 2 and a half years later in the exact same job.

Anyway. If the basic wage is £23K in the above job (half of £46K), it would be just a little less than what I make now. That's actually pretty good because I would be saving a lot on petrol, I may actually end up making more.

SnowDrop

74jax said:

What is the basic and is commission capped?

Commission is uncapped and I don't know what the basic is.

74jax

SnowDrop said:

74jax said:

What is the basic and is commission capped?

Commission is uncapped and I don't know what the basic is.

It's hard to know if it's feasible then.   

You could be in minimum wage and the rest commission or it could be 40k and so would need 10k commission.  

If it's uncapped where is 50k coming from, is that was is offered OTE with no basic? Do you have the advert? 

Grumpy_chap

How many kitchens do you need to sell to secure the £50k?

I saw an advert for car salespeople several years back and that said to sell 20 cars / month.  What is the equivalent number for selling kitchens?  Is that a number you think is realistically achievable?  Bear in mind, there will be some appointments where the sale was never going to happen.

[Deleted User]

Sounds too good to be true? It would be great to hear from anyone who has first hand experience with these roles.

A lot of these businesses when, lets face it, you have to go and camp out at a customers home to instil them to buy, under the guise of 'sales appointment' are 'feast and famine' spurt industries.

I know we advertise to our home sellers that they can be richly rewarded and give the impression to the home sales person, we're dealing with queues of people wanting to book but the hard truth is they aren't paid until they've made a sale and some days it takes 100+ calls for one appointment to be booked for that sales person. They are Self Employed, yes they can tell us what they are doing rather then other way round but it must be hard when no money is coming their way and our guys go through blips when they will sell for a period and then are unable to achieve for a period. (no matter how good they are)
(I'm the telesales person that has to secure the first foot in door appointments as it were).  
Our industry has gone quiet at the moment, when someone said other day about feast and famine, it then made sense but of course no one is going to be that honest during an interview so I don't blame you for wanting to find out the truth in advance.

Sandtree

Grumpy_chap said:
Bear in mind, there will be some appointments where the sale was never going to happen.

Depending where it is on the spectrum... there will be many appointments that never turn into a sale and those that do are probably involving several appointments. I dread to think how many hours the sales person worked on our kitchen, face to face time was probably 10-12 hours plus whatever other time on creating the various design options, refining the drawings, getting samples sent, travelling to our home twice etc.

We we not alone either as several times it was "I'll make those changes and come back next week at the same time" and when we get there the other same couples are there too again. 

Looking at mid-higher end brands job adverts very quickly they all are suggesting basic + uncapped commission with OTE of circa £30£35k year 1, £50-£55k year 2 and claiming top earners are into 6 figures. 

Having been to some of the high end show rooms in central London, where kitchens can easily go into 6 figures, most people come in asking for someone by name (indeed they were confused when we didn't have the name of who we wanted to deal with - we just wanted ideas as didn't have enough kidneys to sell ). So certainly in some you can believe big money can be made however you live and die on your reputation and so if you cannot do the design side then you can't rely on the sales side to get you through. 

Ditzy_Mitzy

No, of course you can't.  The commission figures are always a best case scenario, no doubt based on Christmas week at the firm's busiest shop.  Just because you can earn that much doesn't mean that you will.  The reality, as I'm sure you are aware, is that you can't sell to people who aren't interested.  If the shop is quiet, something beyond your control, there's no-one to attempt to sell to; plenty of people are timewasters; some just go in there to have a look.  You know how this sort of thing works.  It's doubly difficult when dealing with kitchens worth thousands, too.  Cheap stuff is easy, put pressure on and people will buy whatever it is to make you go away.  Doesn't hold true for expensive goods, as the average punter isn't going to hand over a year's disposable income just to get rid of the sales(wo)man. 
Sales staff get treated dreadfully by management.  I've walked out of every sales job I've held, despite being good enough at them to have the manager who had given me a load of abuse follow me out of the place begging me to return.  There are, no doubt, some nicer places but they'll be family firms rather than the big corporates.