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Hiring commission only sales people Warriors, "Commission only" sales reps. Do they exist? What is the starting point to search them? Any pointers in this regard? I have had not so good experience with hourly sales reps. thanks Jay |
Commission-Only Sales People It takes a while to find someone with this level of confidence. What you're looking for is someone who is not going to depend on you for leads. I've had the best results with independent salespeople already selling to the market I want to reach. i start with a referral arrangement. Another approach is to offer a high commission on a lead-in service so they have immediate income. I also pay a small percentage on recurring customers with a bonus for reaching a certain level of new clients per month. An Observation: The biggest hurdle for most consultants is not enrolling the client but prospecting. The most important thing you can do is put a "pre-sales" process in place so you move the business owner from a postcard, letter or ad to a video to picking up the telephone to call you. The accelerator for me was that I specialized in working in a specific profession to start. Soon, I was regularly recommended by key influencers. Hope this helps. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people I agree that you need to have someone already selling to business owners or, at least, someone who is not afraid to talk. My most recent hire has come from the local university. He's a 20 something guy who already has a business that he is working and wanted to add to his income via selling. I placed an ad in the career board at the university and regularly get calls. Everyone that calls knows it is commission only, so the calls are already pre-qualified. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people The fastest way of course I have found is to just place help wanted ads for "sales reps" in major metropolitan newspapers with a short "experience required in ..." I get some hard-hitting sales pros from ads in USA Today, but it is very expensive. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people thanks for inputs. Is there any other source to post it? |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people Monster.com Career Builder.com The Local Newspapers..... The Weekly Free Press in your area... The list goes on.... Also... you can use craigslist and backpage but the people you will find will be less than savory. Just my experience. The best thing to do... is Hired Hard... Manage Easy.... So my thing is to make sure you have all the training materials and literature needed ready before posting any ads.... Also... what was mentioned before about prospecting is KEY.... You may want to hire prospectors first. Get you some telemarketers to call B2B and set you appointments. Run a few of the appointments and make sure they are solid appointments... Then hire closers to run the appointments.... Finding quality people to do everything is somewhat trying at times. Unless you have a system in place. I give a LARGE portion of the initial sales and recurring off the backend to make sure that they will stay.... This can be a curse. Sometimes they will make enough money to sustain thier bills and beer money, then stop selling. Coast for the rest of the week. That is where being a motivational manager comes in REAL handy. If you are going to hire people because you want a hands free business... You better just do the sales yourself for a while. Document "standard operating procedures" for EVERYTHING. That way you can hand a "system" for everything over to someone and say... "Go". Even then, you will have some major headaches and pitfalls.... just not as many. Hiring, firing, and managing is a full time job in itself |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people Commission sales is tough to do, and discourages most from applying. The ideal candidate for a commission sales position would be comfortable with selling from their own leads. Also they would have a positive sales track record, with indication of future improvement. Sales professionals are always great to aquire, but be sure to compensate them honestly. Most professionals are looking for high or low commission sales, that convert well. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people Hi, I've actually got 2 people working for me on commission. I found these two (and many more) on Craigslist and oDesk.com Good Luck! ~Russ |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people Russ, How are your commission only salespeople working out for you? |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people I've tried to get commission only sales people before and had NO luck... even tho other people were reporting success with it. I thought I was doing something wrong... LOL. I'll probably try it again some day. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people All the people I interviewed in November turned out to be unreliable or had other offerings, and basically, I lost time and got no one hired. And you know what? It still makes total sense to me to find at least one rep. I found out how much I'd make per call, postcard, etc, based in estimations but very thorough with it (I have previous experience in sales). Factoring time and money, the ROI on ONE 15-20 hour a week rep is very much worth it. It's worth "losing" aka "investing" 10-15 hours trying to find one (including interview and everything). I made a video explaining the job, what is expected, how much I'd pay etc. No BS, direct yet professional tone. The goal is to weed out bad candidates before they waste my time (in these tough economic times, many people are willing to "try" prospecting at your expense - not so with a commission income and a clear description of what's expected). Note: pay them WELL and fast. Give them a surprise bonus for the first sale, bonuses for volume, etc. On a commission based job, if the commission is not very high, forget it. You'll lose them in a hurry, that's if they ever try out in the first place. They should make AT LEAST $25-30 an hour if they perform decently, a lot more would be better. Even if it amounts to 30-40% commission for you, remember it's your foot in the door for that client, you might upsell them other services, get referrals (and you should!), etc. Much like in IM where they pay affiliates 50-75% on the front end and keep all the back end money, consider doing the same to attract and KEEP commission based reps. |
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Also, the ideal candidate doesn't have to have a sales track record. Some of my best sales reps didn't come from a sales background. They just had experience working with people in general. You are looking for a people person, doesn't have to be a sales rep. Sales is about building relationships. People that are good at building relationships are great reps. They talk to people, not look at them like their next meal. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people I am on both sides of the fence with the last two posts.... I have hired waiters that became top performing sales people. At the same time.... I have hired professional sales reps that outperform the waiters... It really all comes down to one thing.... Management. If you manage well... they will perform well. Training is a key part of management. I am currently setting up a series of training videos that I will make available to all of my reps. Phone or Outside sales. That way they can reference, and know what is expected. No stone unturned. Weekly sales meeting is not enough if you are doing a virtual team. Yellow book sales reps are all virtual as of the end of this year. But they still have an office for accountability. That way... when people aren't performing, they are tied to a desk for prospecting until they meet there goals. Almost like a form of punishment. Yellow book also gives thier reps $500 per month for office space allowance to make up for the expense of having a home office. I like this model. A lot... But if I don't manage well... it doesn't matter who I hire or where they office. Plain and simple. |
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How are they doing? It's due to Odesk, I have lost faith in hourly billed sales guys. i would rather invest time in hiring 1 commission only guy instead of 5 j******, who do nothing. |
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Thanks for inputs. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people I have been trying to hire 2 sales people. i have been advertising on gumtree (here in the UK) but it seems like an uphill task. Most of the time when i try to interview them it ends up like they are interviewing me..any tips? |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people Take control of the conversation. It is about positioning. You are the one in charge. If they control and pace the conversation.... they are in charge. Stop it. They will always try and control your conversations from that point forward. It is actually a good thing that they know how to do that. Because that is what it takes in sales. You want to pace the conversation and be able to steer it towards the close. So them doing that is not necessarily a bad thing. What is not so good. Is if you can't keep up or maintain the pace yourself. If you are going to manage these people you will be the one in charge. Simply establishing dominance when someone tries to go this route will fix that. Even if you have to just come out and say.... "Hey, Let me ask the questions here. I will leave some time when we are done if you have any questions." Another way... is to simply answer their questions then roll into a question of your own. And just keep firing the questions off. Don't let them take control. You are the boss. You are the one that is going to be signing the checks. It is YOUR decision that counts. Not theres. There are plenty of other sales people out there. If they don't like the way that you do business. There's the door. Straight and simple. The key in sales... "is to care, just not that much" What I mean by that is love the one your with. But if they want to play by their rules. They are done. This is your game. They play how you want to play or go home. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people In my experience, you need to offer some base, even if it's just minimum wage. There's only a very select few that can live off of whatever ELSE they got going on while they build up their pipe line. And typically, what happens, is you become a "hiring manager" rather then running your business. Commission based people have NOTHING keeping them their but the hope of BIG COMMISSIONS so you get a lot of turnover. Which in-turn, makes you a hiring manager, continually trying to keep bodies in those seats, instead of doing what you should be doing as the owner of the company. Also, with all that turn-over, you also turn into a "training manager" too...teaching each new commission based rep "the ropes" and how it all works. Having said that, there is, of course, the exception - I've had commission based guys and in-fact, I have one right now. But he also has a side-business driving limos, so he's not full-time. If you're serious, pay someone a little base and train them to be an awesome sales rep for your company, then THAT PERSON can train new people and you can continue to do what's important... GROW YOUR BUSINESS. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people Agreed.... I share a lot of the same experiences and sentiment. At least for the moment I share the same sentiment. But... When you are first starting out and you don't have an office or place people can report to. Hiring commission only has it's advantages. You just have to be full aware of the disadvantages listed in Adams Post. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people If you want quality sales reps, you have to advertise where they are looking. As I mentioned earlier, I advertise directly for "sales reps" in major metropolitan newspapers. There are some very high-powered sales people who are used to working straight commission, and these kind of caliber of sales people do not tend to look on Craigslist or any ragsheet. Even with that, you still are going to go through a lot of people to find the best. I have four commission-only outside sales reps, two commission only telemarketers, and some wage + commission appointment setters. Monster.com was mentioned also as a source for finding commission-only sales reps. That is where they are looking. Let them find you where they would expect you to be. |
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Re: Hiring commission only sales people I use to have commission only sales people, but I had them sitting in a big glamorous office where they could be supervised on the phones, and also they were calling on leads that I generated and presold on the internet. So, if its a "piece of cake" and you can provide the right atmosphere, system... it works, in my experience, or if you can give them pre set appointments. But for "cold calling" I would rather pay someone by the hour so I dont have to spend the next month "selling the job to them everyday..." to keep them motivated. Commission sales reps work... ask Amway, people will even "pay you" to become a rep! I have some amazing experience in creating systems where people actually pay "you" to become a rep ... but thats another story floating around here somewhere. Said all that to say... I just find it to be generally less trouble and hand holding when the telemarketer has to prove themselves to you and not the other way around. So, I choose hourly. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people I actually use both hourly reps and commission only reps. These are totally separate breeds altogether. Hourly reps for generating leads and appointments you can find just about anywhere, but to find one productive and motivated commission only rep you'll plow through a hundred unless you advertise where they are looking. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people If what you are selling is of high value then you can call a head hunter. If not you can use craigslist. One trick I've learned in hiring commission only people is to use a 'vanishing base'. They get say an hourly rate for a certain amount of time as they learn the business and it starts to vanish. Basically they get hourly for 3 months until they prove they can do the job then it switches to commission. You can grab some gems doing this who aren't sure if they want to risk it on commission only when they may be great at it. |
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I tend to agree... I started out doing everything myself. Then started hiring straight commission.... BUT.... There is a LOT of turn over and hand holding. Not my thing anymore. I am getting too old for that stuff. What it all comes down to... before you hire anyone. Do everything yourself and get to know every detail of what can happen. Then make a proper training manual and rebuttal to EVERYTHING and ANYTHING that can happen. Even with hourly cold callers you are going to get high turnover. But... you can weed them out faster, and you don't have to hold their hand. Either you get it or you don't. Next..... This in itself can make for a full time job for you. Just hiring, trainging, managing and firing. But if you hire hard.... you can manage easy. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people I recall someone offering a system to hire and training outside sale reps does anyone recall that website name was someone Maria Gudelis recommended |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people Just found this thread. I am an outside sales rep looking at getting into internet/offline/mobile marketing. If anyone is looking for a rep in Minneapolis please contact me. You must include an email because I cannot PM you back, I do not have 50 posts. See my signature. Thanks. |
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Re: Hiring commission only sales people Hey Amfire, In my ten plus years in business, I have NEVER come across a "commission only" salesperson who can actually sell consistently. There's a reason these guys are willing to work for commission only (because no serious company would hire them on a retainer/salary). My two cents: If you're trying to get business through cold calling, either yourself or by hiring salespeople, you're going about selling ALL WRONG. In my humble opinion, if you're looking for new business, you should NEVER do these things: -DON’T cold call businesses -DON’T email businesses out of the blue (this is actually SPAM) -DON’T send your potential clients “post cards” -DON’T buy a targeted list -DON’T hire telemarketers -DON’T hire a salesperson to sell for you Why? It's not because these techniques don't work. They do. It's just that there are far more effective methods out there that require less effort and convert much better. -Logan |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people This dudes trying to sell something.... I can just feel it. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people What an interesting post, some people have it correct, some are guessing. With commission only you will get 99% rubbish replies that will just frustrate you, these players are novices that can not do better, and the thing most people miss is the real pro commission only sales person, picks you / not you picking them. so offer good commissions, good conditions, good products and services, good support structure and from the right people will start to find you. If you think your the boss man with this level of person you would be wrong, they are their own business, they have a living based on their own back before they met you and do what they do well and thats sell. Most business owners just need to support them and let them go do their thing with out the need to feel like they are the boss, if given respect flows both ways. a commission only sales person on high levels will think and act more like this, where the employer may say "sounds great, you have everything we are looking for when can you start?" the sales guy says to himself, "yes i am sure I do but my question I am asking is do you have what I want?" and many top level / pro sales guys will probably cross you off the list and move on leaving you with the rubbish, so line your ducks in a row to catch the top level people. And to top the question of where people say you get a lot of low level people apply, it also stands that many commission only jobs advertised are by companies b\/ bosses who have NFI - they do not want to pay some money out to retain a good sales person on the books, the products and services they offer are almost ever crap and not thought out, they often have no support material, have little to no knowledge of marketing or how to generate sales and every other known failure before they start. It is these same people who then cry the comm only sales guys do not work. The high rolling sales guys are out there are are extremely good at what they do, bait your hook properly and you will attract them, and when you land the real deal look after them like gold and they will return ten fold for you. |
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"Make $699 per DAY! While getting $200+ in residual income from ea. client! Includes 7 Guerilla Marketing Streams to get NEW clients daily!" ...in his signature. OF COURSE I'm trying to sell something. Each and all of us on this site are trying to sell something. How else are we going to make any money? I am more than happy to be completely transparent about what I do. Ask me any question you like, if you have your "suspicions", and I'll be glad to answer them in detail. -Logan |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people @ Logan Ok 99% of the things that people mention on this board doesnt work yea? so what does? care to share some light Its always good if people provide solutions and not just shoot down everything by saying 'doesnt work' |
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This part of my response kind of got lost in my post above, but it definitely bears repeating: Loganquinn; You are absolutely dead wrong here!!! The best sales guys work on straight commission because they can make more money. They don't ask for a salary, they ask for a higher commission percentage. They may take a draw on commission if they are just starting in a new territory or industry, but it is just a draw. Read Tryinhere's comment below again, it is dead on!!!! |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people How much commission do you pay to the telemarketers/appointment setters and the closers? |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people I have very professional full-time commission only sales reps for 10% straight commission. My telemarketing people set up appointments so these professionals don't have to waste their time prospecting. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people I have posted on craigslist to hire some commission only reps, but nada. Craigslist seems to be flooded with sales jobs, many of them are bogus MLM stuff, so I guess people don't take it seriously since there aren't too many real sales jobs. I will try local directories and local newspaper classifieds. |
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Re: Hiring commission only sales people Thanks for the tip. I will definitely try USA Today as well as the local papers. I don't have much of a clue what to offer the telemarketers, though, 10%? and Another 10% for the closers? |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people If you advertise for experienced reps, you will start getting an idea for what they are expecting in your niche. I pay the telemarketers $8/hr plus $20 for each appt. If the appt results in sale, they get an additional $100. The outside sales reps get 10% commission plus some performance bonuses. There are also two other telemarketers on commisssion only selling some of our less expensive products. |
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But I will give you a "tip" that can help. If you're wanting to find a client without actually having to go out there and cold call (which is what 99% of people do...which is why 99% of people in this business FAIL...anyone who tells you any different is flat out LYING to you), first off, pick a real world keyword - for example "divorce lawyer las angeles", build a simple Google Sniper type site targeting that keyword, get a top rank (1-3) ABOVE the Google Plus Box (note: If you join the Instant Local SEO program, we can do that FOR you), then auction it off on Ebay. Whoever wins can use this site to filter traffic to their primary website. If you're a really smart cookie (which I'm sure you are), you'll also suggest to whoever buys your site that you can host the site and "maintain" the rank for an ongoing annual fee of, say, $1000 (minimum). In my experience, once you get a top rank for your keyword, as long as your content and links are solid, your rank should never move. If it ever does, simply add a few more pages of content, build a few more links, ping them, and you should be golden. Now, during the course of your auction, I'm guessing there's a good chance you'll be contacted by a number of divorce laywers in Las Angeles. My advice: Use this opportunity to build a database of potential clients. Once the auction's finished, you can email all of them and say you can get their EXISTING website ranked higher on Google. (Of course, as long as you know how.) Since you already have a top rank for "divorce lawyer las angeles", I doubt many people are going to argue with you. Quote:
I say it again: I have NEVER in my ten plus years in business met a commission only salesperson (and I have met MANY) who can sell consistently. Does that mean they don't exist? No. All I'm saying is, I've never met any. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people I will be hiring 2 commission only outside sales reps to start next week, and have interviews for 18 more positions over the next few weeks. That's not including the 4 reps I have now plus two commission only telemarketers. :D |
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Do you have a rep in Minneapolis Paul? |
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The problem is.... you have to constantly hire, fire, train and manage the ones that don't work until you get a solid team. Do you have the time? Good... your golden. I judge people by what they do and not what they say. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people I have to constantly advertise for new people, but I get most of mine from CL. Most don't work out but I do not talk to any of them UNTIL they start making me (and themselves) money. Before that it is all email and either they take action and get results FAST or they are fired. |
Re: Hiring commission only sales people Hello Amfire, I think I can help you in this problem. Have you heard iMerchant? Or you can PM me here for some discussions. Thanks! Regards, gibung0gdawkah:cool: |
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