When I was but a young boy, in my teens, my older brother took me under his wing and taught me the skills necessary to make money in the Automotive-Body-and-Paint Industry.
Now, let me be clear, my older brother did not have a flourishing Body and Paint Shop on some high traveled commercial road.
He did ‘side-jobs’ in the back-yard of our Grandmother’s house.
Further, my brother did not take me ‘under his wing’ to teach me the trade out of some sense of good-will or compassion.
No sir, no time for good-will or compassion.
The reason he taught me the trade was because the family needed to eat and pay the bills to keep the lights on in the house.
After I learned and sharpened my auto body repair skills, I began to realize that my efforts were making my brother MORE MONEY.
Though it is true that I had dropped out of high school, I instinctively knew, that he knew, that if he did not start paying me some real money, I would eventually take what he had diligently taught me and go to work for someone else.
I found out, later on, that this was simply the way business works.
So he decided to pay me, but he would not pay me an hourly wage or a salary. My brother decided to pay me on a commission-base-only.
I had no clue what ‘commission-base-only’ really meant. All I knew was that if I fixed something I would get paid, and I knew I could fix stuff.
Commission-Base-Only is a pretty simple concept: You DO NOT get paid unless you produce results. The more results you produce, the more you get paid.
For example, I fix a damaged door, I get $20 dollars, I fix a busted fender, I get $30 dollars, I wet-sand and prepare an entire car to paint, I get $100 dollars, and so on.
After a few weeks, I realized I was getting paid $300 to $500 in weekly commissions! Now for a teen, THAT was a ton of cash! I LOVED getting paid on commission.
Ever since then, I did not give a damn about the minimum wage and I never cared to get paid hourly and if I was offered a salary I always managed to negotiate some kind of commission or bonus structure.
Later, as I got older and I applied for jobs, I would negotiate my paycheck to be equal to what I produced, because I had enough sense to know that what I produced would earn me more money than any salary or hourly rate any company would have to offer, and I had enough confidence in my ability, my skills and my knowledge to get the job done.
After a while, I learned about bonuses, incentives and company perks and I would negotiate for these benefits as well.
You see, if you agree to, or LOCK-YOURSELF into, a salary or an hourly-wage, you leave yourself ‘zero-room’ to grow financially.
Better to agree on a set-salary or hourly-wage with the condition that if you prove yourself to be worthy in two or three months, you and your boss will meet again to evaluate and re-negotiate a more suitable rate of pay comparable to your skills.
If you are the type of person that believes in your abilities and have confidence in producing results, then a commission-base-pay structure is where you can receive tremendous financial returns for your efforts!
