A commission is a fee paid to a sales representative for selling a company's products. For example, if you work on commission in a retail clothing store, your employer will pay you a percentage of each sale you make. An override commission is a commission that a sales representative earns when another employee makes a sale. Typically, employees such as managers earn override commissions when sales reps that they manage make their own sales. Companies use override commissions to motivate sales managers or other employees to generate sales from other representatives.

Enter the right industry. Most employees earn salaries or wages from an employer, not commissions. Typically, only salespeople earn commissions, with the amount of the commission based on the amount of generated sales. While some industries, such as retail clothing, often pay a base salary plus a sales commission, others, such as the financial services industry, often pay only 100 percent commission to salespeople. Before you can earn an override on another person's sales, you must find an industry that pays that type of commission.

Become a manager. Most sales managers start out as retail salespeople before moving on to management. If you learn the business and prove that you can generate sales, your employer may eventually offer you a management position, in which you are in charge of generating sales from a group of salespeople.

Ramp up sales. To get an override commission, you must motivate your sales team to generate their own commissions. The more strategies you can devise to increase sales, the greater the chance you have to earn override commissions. As a sales manager, your employer will probably provide you with some leeway regarding your motivational strategies, so you may be able to pay a small base salary to your sales force or devise some type of incentive plan to motivate them to sell more. As an experienced salesperson who has "been in the trenches" and can relate to the day-to-day experience of the average salesperson, you should be in a good position to be able to motivate your sales staff to higher sales figures. Some employers may only pay you an override commission if you increase sales over a certain base level.