I work as a software developer in the United States for a very successful (but small) SaaS company (less than 80 employees). It's privately held with no profit sharing or equity options available. Our development team is salaried, and most of us have been here since the startup phase.
We have between 2,000 and 3,000 enterprise (high paying contract) customers, and are growing at a rate of about 5-10 new sales per day.
In response to our growth, the leadership team has been hiring a lot of sales staff to handle this very large volume increase in customer interest. We literally did not have enough warm bodies to take calls.
In our current landscape of an overflow of customers & interest...
Should our sales staff receive a commission for customers who contact us?
Is it normal practice for a sales staff to be on commission (rather than salary) regardless of the company landscape?
These questions obviously stem from a perceived inequality in pay (or at least profit sharing) by the developers, including myself, in that we feel an earned commission should involve more than taking an order over the phone.