Can You Really Say You Own/Run Your Own Business When You Get Paid On Commission?

Do you think the owner of Sears gets paid if no one shops there? Business always relies on customer purchases. It doesn't matter what type of business you're in, getting customers and making sales is the hardest part of running a business. Why do you think salesmen make so much money? Because it's a hard job and usually the most important job at the company.

Yes, you can say it as your own business as long as you get paid.........money matters, not whether you get it via commission or your own products..

Imagine you get 1000's via commission and then on another hand you have your own product with zero sales....which one would you call business?

Yes, people whose main income is based on commission, can clearly state they run their own business if that's how they have it set up.

I have a friend who owns an insurance brokerage company. He doesn't sell any of his own products. He has about 120 different insurance products that he sells and he gets paid commissions on when he sells them. Many of them have residual income as well. He definitely runs his own business with employees, pays business taxes, etc.

Before I started creating my own products, I only made income by selling other people's stuff (affiliate marketing). And it was still my own business because I owned the websites I used, I owned my own lists that I marketed offers to, and I incorporated my first company in the state of Nevada.

According to the IRS, I had a bonafide, legal business. So the answer is "yes". Again, it all depends on how the business model is set up and if there is an intent to make a profit as a business or sole proprietor.

RoD

Hi Jon,

Yes, you can.

A travel agency is among the many businesses that get paid on commission. They're still real businesses, many with bricks and mortar, investors, employees, share capital, legal personality of their own ("limited liability company" or whatever) and everything else that goes along with running and owning a business, including the fact that they can be bought and sold to new owners, sometimes for huge amounts of money. In every sense of the word, they're "businesses". They also get paid on commission only.

All businesses are dependent on other "outside" people/things/services, one way or another, whether they're manufacturers or not.

The extent of difference between "you" and "someone who works at the local Sears" varies hugely, according to what sort of commission-only business it is.

What you're saying is arguably not far from the truth in the case of an MLM distributor, for example: if the company folds up (as such a huge proportion of them do, one way or another) his "business" perhaps isn't worth anything to speak of.

But that situation doesn't compare at all with, for example, an affiliate marketing business built up on the basis of websites, subscriber-lists and so on (real, valuable assets), selling 75 different products/services provided by 25 different vendors and accessed through 5 different sources/outlets. That's a whole different world, isn't it? That's "your own business" - sometimes in all the ways mentioned above, including even the buildings and the employees.

So, however you look at it, is isn't "the fact that you're paid on commission" which in itself makes something "not really a business", is it? If you really think it is, try discussing that with some of the world's biggest travel agencies, and so on.

the differences:

2) a website makes money when you walk away from it ...
a person at sears makes nothing when they walk away from that 9 to 5

2) a website can be sold to another person after you earn for a month, doubling the profit from your energy that month... a person at sears gets no benefits if they quit..... the buck stops there

\Two biggest things to me is "long term values" in websites.....

As an affiliate or subcontractor you gain the avantage of being able to choose how to spend your time and determine what your time is worth. It is that "freedom" that enables you to call confidently call yourself a business person, or self-employed. It's the awareness that you have a choice to do as you please and the fortitude to bear the inherent risks that separates a business person from a laborer.

Yes you still own your business and it is your business even if you get paid on a commission. Walmart for example has thousands of companies selling their products in their stores. Walmart doesn't buy those products to display but list them and then pays the vendors when there is a sale. Now do we say the vendors don't own their business off course they do they are just supplying the products to be sold. In the same way you own your internet marketing business. Heck, your business could be affiliate marketing and its still a business. You just sell things for someone else. So theoretically you are actually the Walmart in this case

Strange thinking. Actually when we say that we are our own boss that means there is no one to dominate you to work, instead you work solely for your own will to make money.

I think the major difference is that you are in total control of your time, you can move and scale things up at your own pace. There is also no limit to how much you can possibly earn

You are a business owner if you generate income whether you are working in/on your business or not.

You are self employed if you have to work in order to generate the revenue. And when you stop working, your earning also stops.

For example, if I owned a Landscaping company, I can send the crew out to do the work, while I piss off at the beach. I do not need to be present to generate income.

If I am a self-employed landscaper, I have to do the work in order to get paid. As there would be no one else to do the work.

Of course, many business owners work in their companies, but they could set it up so they do not have to if they do not want to. Self employed cannot.

No, they cannot. They're a commissioned salesman and nothing more. It's like people in MLM...they like to make believe that they're a business owner, but they're just salespeople who work for commission with a 2 tier program. Adults like to play pretend as much as children do though. :rolleyes:

I can say yes since working on commission is all dependent on your efforts.If you work hard you earn more and if you sleep on your job you make less money.
Working on commission also encourages hard work hence the employer is almost guaranteed of value for his/her money.
This also applies to business owners,if you work hard on your business you make more money than those who doesn't.
The beautiful side of commission based income is that there is no limit as to how much you can make.

Hey,

Just look around how many businesses are working for commissions e.g real estate agents, brokers etc. You apparently can say that you run your own business.

It's totally the truth, you don't get paid if you don't produce. Your product is your audience/influence in recommending products that you get a commission for. That's advertising. That's what a marketing company does, the payment simply is based on pay per performance, the way it should be for sustainability.

In EVERY business nobody gets paid until something is sold.

Now, there may be temporary payments because a loan is taken out to start a business or something like that but in the end there are no guaranteed payments in any business until something is sold. When enough of those somethings quit being sold, the payments stop.

Since when are there any guaranteed payments in your own business? That sounds more like a government job not a business.

Mark