Has any one used a sales person. Do you have ideas on how to pay them.Hourly plus commsion? just commision after so long? Commision from the get go? Thanks for your input!!!

I will be talking to a guy tomarow about this exact thing. I dont have any idea how it will work out but I am going to try something.

I was thinking if he just gets me in and I get the job I will do something like 25% commission, or do something like first job commission of 15% and 5 to 10% for every job on that same account each time I do it.

I really dont know how it will go, I will just throw some things out on the table tomarow and see what he is thinking about.

I will report back after our meeting tomarow on how it went.

Jeff

Three things come to mind on this topic.

1. If you expect this sales person to make a living selling your services, you will need 10 to 15 technicians to keep up with the sales needed to generate enough income for this person.
or
2. Find a semi retired person that just wants to keep active and the amount of income is not the real incentive to be out there ponding the bushes.
or
3. In a small business like the most of us are, the best person to be making sales calls is YOU. Set aside one half day a week to go out on sales calls. This is will turn out to be the most profitable of your 3 options. If this works out than you hire technicians and you do sales and manage the business.

Don
You sound as if you have had some experience in using
one or more salespersons. Do you recommend cold-calling, or mailing out a letter or package, then following up with a phone call?

Mark Dullea

The sales person route proved very expensive in the end we discontinued that route.
Cold calls are tough, and you need thick skin because you will get the door slammed in your face.
Best way is to find the name of the person you need to contact, send a letter of introduction, now you have a reason to call and try to get an appointment to sell yourself and your services, you need to do this is a very short period of time so once in the door have a prepared presentation and if they like what they hear you will have time to expand on your services and likely get a chance to do a demo and a quotation.
The only cold calls I do is simply to get the name of the person I need to contact, and that I do with the receptionist.
Remember this "people don't care how much you know, til they know how much you care!"
Don't spend a lot of time talking about all your certifications and time spent in classrooms, talk about their needs, extending the life of their carpet investment, continuously clean carpet, emergencey service for those coffee spills that always happen in the President's office, these are some of the things they want to hear.