Timeshare Salesmen Compensation

[Icarus]

I have heard as the number of sales goes up, the percentage they take home follows up as well. Its based on a tier system so they are motivated to sell more

Really? I never heard that before.

:rofl:

 

[Terrijordan]

sunterra

I was just recently involved in a timeshare presentation, I ended up buying 2000 points to add to my resale package - by doing that I was able to get into Sunterras Club (if you buy resale you have to purchase that separate at the cost of $2950) buying the points waived that fee. Anyway when you purchase something from Sunterra they supply a bottle of champaigne. There were 4 tables in the morning session and 4 in the afternoon (I couldn't make up my mind so I told them I needed a few hours to decide on my purchase) I don't know what they sold or how much but that was 8 sales that day not including mine (they gave me my bottle to go) They only had two presentations a day.

 

[dougp26364]

....
We have not done a Hilton but maybe look to do one in Las Vegas when we go out there for a week stating on this Sunday.

Bruce

Hilton use to be more of a class act than it is now. We just went through an owners update and it was essentially a typical high pressure timeshare presentation with the salesman and two additional closers. They even tried the "trial membership" act with us despite the fact we are already owners with Hilton. We were offered the list price of $33,000 for a standard 2 bedroom unit and $45,000 for a penthouse unit. From there they started discounting the price all the way down to the trial membership.

At one point I recomended the tour and the program to friends and family. It's now been placed on our "no referal" list since they've sunk into the depths of the typical timeshare tour.

 

[brucecz]

Doug, thanks for the heads up. No problem as we would like to check out those units as we hear it is a very nice resort. I think we can handle any US presention if we can handle the Mexican presentations.

Bruce

 

[dougp26364]

Doug, thanks for the heads up. No problem as we would like to check out those units as we hear it is a very nice resort. I think we can handle any US presention if we can handle the Mexican presentations.

Bruce

The penthouse units are VERY nice but, they shot me a price of $45,000 for one week and I thought about passing out for effect. The penthouse in the second tour is what they were showing people. I'm not certain if they have a tour of the standard unit. It would be something of a step down or let down after seeing the big penthouse with the windows that are nearly floor to ceiling. From the penthouse floor we could clearly see all of the strip and watch planes taking off and landing at the airport despite the distance. That's likely to change when Fountainbleau gets up to it's maximum height blocking much of the view south.

They'll also tell you about Vegas Crown to be built directly across from HGVC LV Strip. What they won't tell you is that it's suppose to be twice the height of the Stratosphere and that the Stratosphere had to be scaled down in size because the FAA wouldn't let it be built at the original height. My opinion is that Vegas Crown or Tower will never be built and that they plan on flipping the land once Foutainbleau is completed or once MGM starts whatever it's planning for the land surrounding HGVC.

I have pics of the resort and the standard units we've stayed in at HGVC LV Strip if you want to see them. Click on the pic below to go to that webshots page.

 

[dougp26364]

FWIW, when waiting for our car at valet there was an unusual car that the valet was having trouble driving. The girl said it was one of the salesmans cares and that they were only made for one year. Her opinion was that all the salesmen here made $120,000 per year which was just hitting their quota. She had heard that one salesman there was making $1,000,000/year and that most made between $250,000 to $500,000/year. I just politely smiled and nodded my head.

 

[brucecz]

Doug, thanks for sharing the information and pictures.

Bruce

 

[FormerSalesman]

I had to register for this board to make this post, since I was a Wyndham salesman for a much-longer-than-typical time period of 10 months.

The base rate is 6% of the sales price. Like some previous posters pointed out, the rate goes up once a certain sales volume has been reached within a 1-month period. The rate goes up for future and all previous sales for the month, so in other words, if you are in the 7% bracket, you receive that on all sales for the month.

Here is the actual commission structure:

Volume for the month $0-$55,000: 6%

$55,000-$65,000: 7%
$65,000-$75,000: 8%

And it keeps going up in $10,000 increments, all the way up to 15%. Actually, the increments get a little bigger once you really get up there, but I don't recall from memory because I never made it that high.

Someone said that the "top 1%" can make in excess of $100,000 or maybe even $200,000, but this is way off.

The reality is, the top 60% at my resort cleared $100,000. Our top producer cleared $400,000 every single year. She had been doing it for almost 20 years. The guy right below her made about $350,000 per year. $100,000 is barely enough to stay employed.

I was on track to make about $60,000, so I said goodbye.

Seriously, you folks would not believe the culture behind the sales floor. There are no "account managers." There is no "Dinner Party" (tell me if you ever heard that one at a Wyndham..."you didn't get invited to the Dinner Party? That's where the best deals were!" followed by a staged argument with corporate on your behalf to "get your benefits back."

It's almost impossible to make a living selling timeshare without taking a huge leap past the ethical gray area and flat out lying. If you're good at it, it's almost like a contract with the devil.

 

[rickandcindy23]

Which resort did you sell? I met a very nice Fairfield salesperson on Maui that was selling Kona Hawaiian Village. He let us go quickly because he could see we weren't interested. He told me about TUG and I am ever so grateful for that.

Many of the salespeople are very nice. I would bet you are too.

 

[Liz Wolf-Spada]

Well, don't all turn against me at once, but I want to retire from teaching in 2 years, get my Hawaii real estate license and sell in Waikoloa for HGVC. I was very impressed with the knowledgeable and low key presentation we attended and it seems like there are many people who have lots of money and like to vacation in Hawaii, so I wouldn't feel like I am trying to make people choose between food and rent and a timeshare. With a pension to back us up, I think I could do it and hopefully have fun, earn some money and live in Hawaii (and wear clothes from Tropical Tantrums each day).
Liz

 

[FormerSalesman]

I was nice. That was the problem. The ones who are "considerate" and "helpful" are the ones you can expect NOT to see next year.

A lot of salespeople use the whole "low key" thing as part of their pitch, but what the last 2 posters have in common, other than the fact that they're nice people, are that they didn't buy.

The last thing ANY salesman wants to hear is, "Well, we're not gonna buy, but you were SO helpful! We're really glad we got you! Who can we tell?"

While the customer's intentions are good, those words are not easy to swallow when you're working on 100% commission.

The classiest thing a resort guest can do is politely turn down the cheap gimmick and use their vacation time to spend with family instead.

 

[Liz Wolf-Spada]

I usually do well selling things I like (so far only Discovery Toys and Worldbook), but I've taught for over 20 years and that's like selling to multiple parties at once who REALLY don't want to be there and don't even get a gift for listening. I'll try it and see how it goes. The person who presented to us at HCVC was very good, persistent, but not high pressure and she was successful (not with us however). When we are in Hawaii and I realize how much people are paying to stay at the resort hotels, even the price of a developer week doesn't seem that much.
Liz

 

[FormerSalesman]

I hope you do well selling it. If your experience parallels mine, this is what you'll deal with:

1. You'll feel like you're wasting your degree

2. Unless you're wildly successful, you'll live day-to-day, under constant stress

3. You'll feel horribly guilty about the tactics you'll use, unless you make enough money to numb the pain. And you will use the "tactics," because your superiors will force you to. Even if they didn't, you'll use dirty tactics anyway because you'll get so desperate.

4. If you went to a presentation in the past, you can't assume that a salesperson was being honest with you just because you bought, or because they call themselves honest.

5. You won't be able to believe what dirtbags your coworkers are, and it will destroy you inside to see how much acclaim and praise they get for it.

6. You will slowly start to resent the people that come in just for the gifts. Even more so, you'll resent the marketers that set up your tours, telling the guests there is no sales presentation involved.

7. Every single tour that doesn't buy affects you professionally.

8. 90% of the new sales reps don't last 6 months.

9. You'll see the best quality tours intentionally handed to the top producers, while you get the RCI exchanges and guests of owners (historically the worst tour types).

10. You won't be proud to tell people what you do.

 

[rickandcindy23]

That sounds like a very sad way to make a living.

You know, you are just too nice to sell timeshare, so it is good you got out of it.

It is a dirty business, that is for sure. The lies, the intimidation, and the high price for a product that loses most of its value before the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed.

I cannot believe the way Wyndham (PAHIO) pushes and pushes to get owners to an update for a lousy $100 in discounts on activities. It is just not worth it to me to go anymore. I get tired of the constant badgering. :annoyed: If you say NO, they don't take it for an answer. They assume you mean MAYBE. My NO is NO, so they need to learn to leave it alone. The calls in the early morning are completely annoying!

 

[FormerSalesman]

That sounds like a very sad way to make a living.

You know, you are just too nice to sell timeshare, so it is good you got out of it.

It is a dirty business, that is for sure. The lies, the intimidation, and the high price for a product that loses most of its value before the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed.

I cannot believe the way Wyndham (PAHIO) pushes and pushes to get owners to an update for a lousy $100 in discounts on activities. It is just not worth it to me to go anymore. I get tired of the constant badgering. :annoyed: If you say NO, they don't take it for an answer. They assume you mean MAYBE. My NO is NO, so they need to learn to leave it alone. The calls in the early morning are completely annoying!

Yes, many owners unplug the phone. I highly recommend this. To the salespeople's credit, everyone gives at least a few "nos" before they say yes. If they gave up after the first "no," they'd never make a sale.

I think it's best, like you said, to just avoid the "update" (another deceptive term) altogether and enjoy your vacation.

 

[Robert D]

I'm curious as to how many sales the typical salesman makes in a day or week, how many presentations they do in a day and what % of presentations actually ends up in a sale. It sounds like even the ones who are very successful only sell one a day. Also, do they dock the salesman for the cost of the "gifts" they give away to get prospects in there if they don't buy or do you just get 6% + for the ones you sell? Do you think most of the major chains use a system similar to Wyndham?

 

[Liz Wolf-Spada]

If it turns out that I don't feel OK about what I am doing, I'll stop doing it and either just be retired or do something like substitute teach. I'm not worried about feeling that my degree is a waste, having used it for over 30 years anyway, but I won't do anything unethical. It's not worth it to me to compromise my integrity. Anyway, it's good for my brain to be studying for the Hawaii Real Estate license as it is hard to learn so many new terms all at once and gives me mental exercise whether I want it or not!
Liz

 

[Robert D]

I don't know about Hawaii, but in many states you don't need a real estate license to sell timeshares. You just need to be able to sell.

 

[Liz Wolf-Spada]

In Hawaii you need a real estate license and the preparation is very extensive. I'm taking a 60 hour online class for $600, bought a book as well and am still nervous about knowing all these alien terms so I can pass the test. I truly doubt that selling timeshares would ever require much, if any, of this knowledge, but it is the same test you take to be a broker, so it is very inclusive of both national and state real estate laws. By the way, they also have a huge section about ethics and you can not only lose your license, but be fined and/or face prison for making false and misleading statements to clients.
Liz

 

[rapmarks]

I had to register for this board to make this post, since I was a Wyndham salesman for a much-longer-than-typical time period of 10 months.

The base rate is 6% of the sales price. Like some previous posters pointed out, the rate goes up once a certain sales volume has been reached within a 1-month period. The rate goes up for future and all previous sales for the month, so in other words, if you are in the 7% bracket, you receive that on all sales for the month.

Here is the actual commission structure:

Volume for the month $0-$55,000: 6%

$55,000-$65,000: 7%
$65,000-$75,000: 8%

And it keeps going up in $10,000 increments, all the way up to 15%. Actually, the increments get a little bigger once you really get up there, but I don't recall from memory because I never made it that high.

Someone said that the "top 1%" can make in excess of $100,000 or maybe even $200,000, but this is way off.

The reality is, the top 60% at my resort cleared $100,000. Our top producer cleared $400,000 every single year. She had been doing it for almost 20 years. The guy right below her made about $350,000 per year. $100,000 is barely enough to stay employed.

I was on track to make about $60,000, so I said goodbye.

Seriously, you folks would not believe the culture behind the sales floor. There are no "account managers." There is no "Dinner Party" (tell me if you ever heard that one at a Wyndham..."you didn't get invited to the Dinner Party? That's where the best deals were!" followed by a staged argument with corporate on your behalf to "get your benefits back."

It's almost impossible to make a living selling timeshare without taking a huge leap past the ethical gray area and flat out lying. If you're good at it, it's almost like a contract with the devil.

the figures you quote are similar to the ones I hear from the long term sales people who live in my neighborhood (Christmas Mountain Village). When I tell others they make $200,000 ayear, they say I am gullible for believing them. That's why i didn't post. I know of a couple that make $400,000 a year, but they are managers. Interestingly enough, 5 of the homes owned by timeshare salesmen who made a lot of money were foreclosed on by the bank.
Also, when we bought our USED CAR, the salesmen said he did timehsare sales before a job opened up at the car dealer. He said he felt slimey doing that job. This is comoing from a used car salesman.

 

[FormerSalesman]

I'm curious as to how many sales the typical salesman makes in a day or week, how many presentations they do in a day and what % of presentations actually ends up in a sale. It sounds like even the ones who are very successful only sell one a day. Also, do they dock the salesman for the cost of the "gifts" they give away to get prospects in there if they don't buy or do you just get 6% + for the ones you sell? Do you think most of the major chains use a system similar to Wyndham?

At my resort, one sale a week was average, 3 was really good. Our top person usually sold 2-3 per day. One sale a day would be a $350,000-$400,000 annual paycheck. The volume of a single sale could be anywhere from $4,300 to $100,000.

They don't dock the salesmen financially for the gifts, but they do give you a "hit," which calculates into your APG (average per guest). The higher the APG, the higher you are on the "stack" (rankings). Your stack position determines the order you receive the tours in. In other words, the top salesman gets the first tour to show up each round, making him more likely to get a tour. The guys at the bottom end up sitting out a lot of rounds.

 

[FormerSalesman]

the figures you quote are similar to the ones I hear from the long term sales people who live in my neighborhood (Christmas Mountain Village). When I tell others they make $200,000 ayear, they say I am gullible for believing them. That's why i didn't post. I know of a couple that make $400,000 a year, but they are managers. Interestingly enough, 5 of the homes owned by timeshare salesmen who made a lot of money were foreclosed on by the bank.
Also, when we bought our USED CAR, the salesmen said he did timehsare sales before a job opened up at the car dealer. He said he felt slimey doing that job. This is comoing from a used car salesman.

About half the salespeople made more money than the managers. Our top 2 had both tried management for a short time, but didn't like the longer hours and smaller paycheck. Management is nice for mediocre sales people because you get a paycheck on every deal whether or not you participated in the sale. If a salesman gets 6% on a deal, his manager gets 1%.

 

[Cathyb]

Liz: Just got back from Vegas HGVC sales promo and caught our sales gal in several 'lies' about Marriott like saying ALL Marriott properties have every other year to convert to points and stuff like that. She said she worked for Marriott 11 yrs. She also incorporated RCI into 'Hilton' saying we have a resort in Phuket when what she really meant was 'you could trade there with RCI'.

Be ready for puffery and some white lies if you decide to sell timeshares.

 

[Liz Wolf-Spada]

The timeshare person at Hilton was very honest. I didn't catch any deceptions. When I asked her about how she can sell to people when it is so much cheaper resale she said that some people can easily afford to buy from Hilton directly and they avoid any hassle that way. Made sense to me, even if I'm not one of the ones who can afford it. I also like the fact that they give you a 10 day rescission period.
Liz

 

[Icarus]

I think Hawaii state law requires 7 days, Liz. HVCI can give 10, but they can't give less than 7 for sales in Hawaii.

Personally, having an idea of the type of person that you are, I don't think timeshare sales are for you. I'm sure you'll do a certain number of sales being an honest person and not stretching the truth about timeshares, but most people need to be persuaded to buy the product, and truthfully, why would you pay list price when you can buy the same product at 40% or more off the list price?

You should have no problem finding work as a substitute teacher or full-time teacher on any of the islands. They have problems recruiting and keeping teachers here because of the cost of living.

-David