Salespeople also come in tiers with overlapping recruits and cattle calls. The recruits get bigger or quicker commissions on "who-they-know." Some cattle call younger salespeople find a mentor or get lucky. But attrition rates are high. I brought in IBM fed sales head for a talk years back. IBM only adjusted base salaries once around 1974 or so. They just let them die on the vines otherwise when sales go down.