As long as you don't have a system where they get compensated for selling stuff that actually loses money in the long term (easy enough ... IF you're honest and transparent), <i>absolutely</i>.<p>In the early '90s I worked for a company with a greedy nepotistic CEO who didn't keep faith with his salesmen (or anyone else for that matter), which regularly brought the company to near death and after I'd left killed it.  Everyone I knew (including programmers) walked away from the company before then with 4-5 figures in bonuses or commissions in arrears.