The Complete Paychex Sales Consultant Review Guide

a year ago   •   3 min read

By Bravado Staff

Learn about the Paychex Sales Consultant salary, culture, and role.
*Note: This is for the SMB Sales Consultant role.

Role Basics

What type of work experience do you need for this role?

The SMB Sales Consultant role is an entry level sales position. You can get hired as a fresh grad from college or with 2-3 years sales experience.

What does a Sales Consultant do at Paychex?

A Paychex Sales Consultant’s main responsibility is to close deals within the assigned territory.

At the SMB level, your business will come from referrals or leads from the National Sales Support NSS team (Paychex equivalent of SDRs), so you do little to no prospecting. It is a full cycle, outside sales position. You will travel to the accounts within your territory.

Which Paychex offices do Sales Consultants work at?

Because this is an outside sales role, most SMB Sales Consultants work from home. You will be traveling to your clients most days of the week so you are not required to be in an office.

However, most mid to large size cities do have a satellite office if you want to work from an office.

How is the sales org structured?

Paychex has multiple different sales divisions.

Inside Sales Org – Covers 1 to 5 employee accounts and only works off inbound leads.

New Business Org – This is the hunter role at Paychex. You will be cold calling, cold e-mailing, and LinkedIn prospecting at companies 1 to 10 employees in size.

SMB Org – Covers accounts with 1 to 50 employees and only works off inbound leads and referrals.

Major Market Services (MMS) Level One – Covers accounts with 25 to 49 employees. Their business comes from their own prospecting instead of inbound leads.

Major Market Services (MMS) Level Two – Covers accounts with 50 employees and above. Their business also comes from their own prospecting instead of inbound leads.

Who does Paychex compete with?

ADP, Paylocity, QuickBooks, and Gusto are the main competitors.

Culture and Daily Life

What's the Paychex sales culture like?

Your experience as far as culture and work life balance will depend heavily on your manager.

Generally, it is considered a high pressure sales environment and you will be grinding it out if you want to blow out your number. At Paychex, the more you work, the more money you make. You can expect to work at minimum 40 hours per week, and up to 70 if you really want to exceed your quota.

You will be expected to spend business hours traveling and working with clients, and after hours on updating the CRM and administrative tasks.

Bravado note:
The Payroll industry is one of the most competitive and difficult verticals to sell in.

Is there a lot of turn over in this position?

The average Paychex Sales Consultant stays from 1-2 years, so there is relatively high turnover.

How many hours per week do Sales Consultants work?

You can expect to work at minimum 40 hours per week, and up to 70 if you really want to exceed your quota.

Salary, Commission, and Quota

How much does a Paychex Sales Consultant make?

Pay varies on location, experience, and account size. For detailed compensation data, visit our Paychex page.

*Note that you will not get paid out until the client actually uses the software they signed for. Many clients sign for the software but might not use it for several weeks to several months, so be weary of this compensation payout structure.

How are the quotas structured?

Paychex quotas are annual.

The payout rates are on a sliding scale and encourage you to exceed your quota. For example, from 0-100% of your quota, you might get paid 10-15% of the revenue from each deal closed, but once you are beyond 100% you can get paid from 20-42% depending on how far you go beyond your quota.

Tips to Succeed

How big of a role does territory play in your success?

Territory does not play a large role in your success at the SMB level. The sales operations team divides the territories by zip code. Each territory will have an equal amount of referral accounts.

If you are willing to grind, you will likely make your number.

What advice would you give to a new rep?

  • Find a mentor
  • Learn from your peers and leaders who are successful in the role
  • Be prepared to grind
  • Sales happen from developing strong relationships with your customer. If you have a strong relationship they’ll send other customers your way.

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