Hiring an outside salesperson

[vizvek]

I'm ready to hire an outside salesperson to help my company focus on generating more wholesale work/customers. I've been doings some reading on whether you should pay your salesperson 100% commission or base + commission. I was wondering if anyone here had any previous experience or advice that I could take into consideration.



I know what my sales goals are and what is to be expected of the salesperson. I just want to find the balance between a fair wage and not paying an unproven employee too much at the outset.

 

[Richard Grasa]

I've actually been looking into this same exact thing, mostly to bring in more wholesale work. My thinking is if my salesperson lands a new dealer account, they will get a commission of each job done for that dealer as long as the salesperson and me continue to have a working relationship, and then a one time "bonus" after a set number of cars from that dealer have been completed/paid for.



This may be way off from what you're looking at doing, but I was thinking of starting someone part time. When they have proven themselves, they would become full time and become the account manager to take care of the customer service end of things with the accounts they have landed, along with any preexisting accounts and for this they will be paid a salary, along with their continuing commissions. Of course I would need to find someone willing to start part time doing sales and then transition to sales/account manager a little later, which may be difficult to find the right person with the right experience. This is not my final plan by any means, just some thoughts I've had in my head about it.

 

[David Fermani]

Do you have any base figures you're trying to stay within? One time commision or residual? I would be hesitant to pay much of a base salary. Have you ever thought about doing the selling yourself and hiring a manager instead? Having a dedicated professional person signing up accounts can be quite a committment. Can your business handle the effects of having a dedicated person constantly (hopefully) bringing in new streams of revenue?



I'd personally love to hear more about your business model. I see you're also from S. Florida. I've never seen many fixed location detail shops. Are you built into the dealerships or off-site?



Keep in mind that if your sales manager is conspicks up a new account, will your business

 

[vizvek]

I've actually been looking into this same exact thing, mostly to bring in more wholesale work. My thinking is if my salesperson lands a new dealer account, they will get a commission of each job done for that dealer as long as the salesperson and me continue to have a working relationship, and then a one time "bonus" after a set number of cars from that dealer have been completed/paid for.

I don't want to the commission to be residual, I was thinking more along the lines of base commission and on any account they land they would earn a percentage on gross sales of that account during the first month. My thought is that it will keep them hungry. I don't want to get to the point where they have landed a number of decent sized accounts and the residual income is enough to keep them from actively looking for more prospects. I definitely don't have any problems with a bonus structure on top of the commission and base pay, but not residual.

 

[vizvek]

Yes, I do have some base figures that I'm trying to stay within. As far as the base salary, I don't want it to be too high that the salesperson doesn't have any motivation to go out and sell. I am also giving the salesperson a cellphone allowance and fuel reimbursement, so that way it minimizes those expenses.



If we are lucky enough to find someone that can land new accounts and bring in new streams of revenue, I don't really see a problem with managing the work. Our operation is more on the volume side, so things are scalable in that sense. It would just be a matter of scheduling and additional hiring if need be.



My company is Premier Mobile Detailing, we are based in Pompano. We are primarily mobile, but we do some on-site work. We aren't built into a dealership. We mostly focus on washes, waxes, express details, etc. We also do tractor trailer washouts and fleet work. It's moving into rainy season as you know, so I want to make sure that we buttress our business with some wholesale work, because the retail work is going to slow down. We are also thinking about expanding our services into interior repairs, tinting and the like.