The Beginning of a Dream

She was never supposed to be here.

Growing up, her entire life had been built around one thing: becoming a professional athlete. Every hour that other teenagers spent working part-time jobs, she spent training. College came with a scholarship, a small stipend for being an athlete, and a singular focus on her sport.

Then she dropped out.

With no work history and a middle-class family that couldn't bankroll her next chapter, she found herself working in a crèche for nearly a year, earning €200 a week. It was honest work, but it wasn't a future.

That's when she discovered the online sales space.

Week One: The Leap

She didn't dip her toe in. She dove headfirst.

Within one week of joining a sales training community, she'd consumed every module, practiced mock calls nearly every waking hour, and applied for her first closing role. No setter experience. No gradual climb. Straight to closing.

The company was doing around €200K a month with five closers. On-target earnings should have been €4-5K monthly if split evenly across the team.

She earned €9,800 in her first month.

Top closer. First month. Life-changing money for someone who'd been making €200 a week just months before.

"It was very surreal," she recalls. "To go from earning €200 a week to being able to make €200 from one call in one hour."

The payment came about a week late. There were signs—ads being prioritised over payroll, a generally disorganised back-end—but the company communicated well enough. And when you're staring at nearly ten thousand euros hitting your account for the first time in your life, you forgive a lot.

The Trojan Horse

That's the thing about these situations. They're like a Trojan horse. Everything seems fine on the surface. The first month clouds your judgment. You give people the benefit of the doubt.

Going into month two, she was optimistic. Same routine. Same calls. Same grind.

But the cracks started showing.

The company had switched marketing agencies. Lead quality dropped. The offer owner—unprofessionally—started complaining directly to her about other closers and the marketing team. Red flags she couldn't ignore but pushed aside anyway.

"It just seemed very informal," she remembers. "She was giving out about other closers to me. I wasn't even the sales manager."

Still, she pushed through. Within the first week and a half, she'd closed around €30K in deals. She had a strong pipeline, including two high-ticket prospects for their premium four-day package—longer deal cycles, but bigger payouts.

She was on track for €5-7K that month.

Then everything collapsed.

The Day Everything Changed

A family member passed away.

She did what anyone would do. She contacted the offer owner, explained the situation, and rescheduled her calls to handle family matters.

The very next morning—the morning after her family member died—she woke up to find herself removed from absolutely everything.

No access. No warning. Just a long message waiting for her.

They were accusing her of fraud.

The accusation? Two of her calls that month hadn't been recorded because Fathom—the recording software—hadn't connected properly. She had email proof that she'd contacted the company about the technical issue. The two unrecorded calls hadn't even closed. There was no money to "funnel" anywhere.

But it didn't matter.

The company claimed she was using their paid leads to funnel business to her own company—a tiny SaaS she ran with her brother selling email domains for $1 each. A completely unrelated business. A ridiculous accusation.

She responded professionally. Asked for a proper offboarding call. Asked for her earned commissions to be paid out.

They said no.

Then they blocked her.

The Powerlessness

"As a sales rep, you just don't have any control," she explains. "They're probably in America. I'm based in Europe. I couldn't fly out to confront them. I had to just... cut my losses."

But here's the thing—those losses shouldn't have been losses at all. That was money she'd earned. Deals she'd closed. Work she'd put in.

The company had complete control over commissions and money she'd earned them. A portion of that was rightfully hers. She had a right to it.

But she had zero control over getting it.

The Unlikely Rescue

Most sales reps in her position would have walked away with nothing. She knows that.

But she was lucky. She had connections in her training community—people with actual leverage. People who knew exactly where this company sourced all their closers and setters.

Her mentors reached out to the company with a simple message: "We're not going to be giving you any closers, any setters, any sales reps if this is how you're going to treat people."

Only then—only under threat of losing their talent pipeline—did the company unblock her, send her the money she was owed, and immediately block her again.

"I would not have gotten my money back if I didn't have the resources and the people behind me," she admits. "It took someone threatening them for a company to pay a sales rep who earned them money their commission."

Let that sink in.

A company had to be threatened before they'd pay someone what they were legally owed.

The Fallout

The damage was done.

"It really, really took a toll on my trust in the online space," she says. "I took three months off of sales completely."

Three months. A top-performing closer—someone who'd made nearly €10K in her first month—walked away from the industry entirely.

"I was putting all the work in, and the trust is all in the company's hands. Although I'm earning them money, they could just not pay me."

The industry lost a talented professional. The next company that could have hired her missed out on a proven performer. All because one business owner decided to accuse her of fraud the morning after her family member died rather than pay her what she'd earned.

It Wasn't Just Her

Her partner—who's also in the sales industry—experienced something similar. Except his situation was worse.

Over two consecutive months, he was owed approximately €40,000 in unpaid commissions.

€40,000. That's what some people earn in an entire year.

He wasn't just a closer—he had sales reps underneath him. People depending on him to get paid so they could get paid.

"It's a big scale," she reflects. "€40K is what some people earn in a year. And I think, you know, we were a lot younger at the time. Our experience would be different. It's trips that were planned ahead of time. For the next three months, we had these trips planned, and we haven't been paid that money."

The ripple effects went beyond missed holidays.

Long-term goals derailed. Investment plans postponed. Marriage plans pushed back.

"It affects long-term goals. Hey, we want to invest in this. We want to get married. We want to do these things. It puts a roadblock in all of that."

And they were the lucky ones. They had dual income. They could survive.

"We were very grateful that it wasn't the only source of income and I was working as well. But if that is your only source of income, all of those things that people are dependent on you for—you can't pay. Because a business owner didn't pay you what you deserve."

The Deeper Problem

What makes this story even more frustrating is that many business owners who don't pay their reps aren't necessarily bad people.

"A lot of the companies that end up in a situation where they can't pay their sales reps aren't bad people," she acknowledges. "They just mismanaged money. They have a great offer. They have a great audience. They have a great team. But maybe it's their first time in business and they just didn't understand."

Imagine you're a first-time business owner. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are flowing into your account. You've never seen numbers like this before. You go on a spending spree—ads, tools, courses, team expansion.

Then payday arrives for your sales team, and you realise you forgot to set aside the 30% you owed them.

The sales cycles overlap. Money from the next billing cycle is already coming in. You dip into it to cover the last cycle. The cascading effect begins—constant delayed payments because you're always waiting for the next influx of cash.

It's not malice. It's incompetence. But to the sales rep who can't pay rent, who can't buy groceries, who can't take their partner on the date they'd planned for three weeks—the result is the same.

The Hidden Cost

Beyond the immediate financial damage, there's something that rarely gets discussed: the long-term career consequences.

Sales reps in the remote space often can't apply for loans or mortgages. Why? Because they get paid in unpredictable lump sums—sometimes 30 or 37 days after closing deals. Sometimes never.

"When it gets to the point of applying for loans, applying for mortgages, they can turn around and say, 'Well, you get paid once a month, that money might not come in, or you're an independent contractor, you're not guaranteed that money. You're not on a salary.'"

Traditional financial institutions don't understand—or don't care—that you closed €50K in deals last month. If you can't show consistent, predictable income, you're a risk.

So talented sales professionals find themselves unable to buy homes, unable to secure loans, unable to build the stable financial future that their skills and earnings should afford them.

The Mental Toll

When your partner doesn't get paid €40K they were owed, it's not just a financial problem. It's an emotional one.

"It can be hard to understand as well because, you know, at a larger scale it's easier—like, damn, that's a lot of money. But even if it's €10K or a smaller amount... you weren't the one taking all of those calls. You weren't the one going to those meetings."

You watch someone you love pour everything into their work. Early mornings. Late nights. Difficult conversations. Emotional labour. The constant pressure of performance-based income.

And then the result of all that effort is... nothing.

"It's not even just the work you've done. It's the whole journey. It's your trust in the system. And it's all gone down the drain. You can hit a really hard low after that. And the business doesn't think of that."

What Should Have Been Different

Looking back, she knows exactly what would have prevented all of this:

The business owner should never have been in control of the money in the first place.

Not because business owners are inherently untrustworthy. But because the current system creates unnecessary risk for everyone involved.

"It motivates your reps to close more because they're getting paid right afterwards. That is literally: close deal, money in hand."

No more tracking imaginary numbers on a Google Sheet, hoping they eventually materialise in your bank account.

No more 30-day cycles that make it impossible to build consistent income.

No more "mismanaged" payroll because someone forgot to set aside the commission pool.

No more talented professionals leaving the industry because one bad experience destroyed their trust.

The Question Every Sales Rep Should Ask

She's back in the industry now. Thriving, actually. Running her own sales agency, training other women to succeed in the space.

But she carries the lessons with her.

"Once people understand the power of getting paid instantly, probably one of the first questions on an interview—when you get time to ask questions—is going to be: 'Are you using Paydai?' And if they say no... maybe that's a red flag. Why are you not using Paydai?"

Because here's the truth she learned the hard way:

It shouldn't take someone threatening a company for you to receive money you legally earned.

It shouldn't take "knowing the right people" to get paid.

It shouldn't require walking away from a career you're exceptional at because one business owner decided to block you rather than pay you.

The morning after your family member dies, you shouldn't wake up to fraud accusations and a locked account.

You should wake up knowing that the €5-7K you earned is already in your bank account. Automatically. Instantly. Without anyone's permission.

That's not a dream.

That's what the industry should have been all along.

NOTE: Names and identifying details have been changed to protect privacy. The experiences described are real.