Paying office people on commission..Is it possible?

[rugsucker5]

I am trying to come up with a fair program for payment for an employee to work from their home and pay them on a per item basis. That way they are not tied to a desk and can go about their day and answer phone as needed,emails as needed, send thank you cards etc. Any ideas or suggestions??? Thanks for any comments

 

[PrimaDonna]

Are you thinking of a flat rate per job booked? % of the whole job? % of the part they put in schedule/work order, but if the tech upsells they get nothing on that? Or a flat rate on jobs booked between $100-200, $200-300, $300-400 etc.

Would you base it off their close/booking rate compared to inbound calls?

How would you track it? That is the real kicker. If you have to go back and dissect each invoice compared to the work order from the time of booking and then split out commission just for the part the person booked then it could get complicated.

If per booking, do they get the commission for those customers that are repeats and would be calling to book their regular scheduled job anyway, or only on the "new" prospects that call in and the person on the phone get's them to book?

Something to consider, but we find the whole commission structure a huge PIA. Especially with our techs and a two man crew or the owner is on the truck. Can't imagine doing it for an office person.

Could be easier if you only have ONE person in the office taking calls and booking appts. But figuring out how to structure it is the issue.

I think I'd pay hourly rate, plus a flat commission/rate for each job booked. If customer cancels job and doesn't reschedule, then they don't get the commission.

Just remember...if you are permitting them to do things "as needed" in their personal life, then that means YOU could be missing getting that job. If it only "costs" the person answering the phones their $10 or $20 booking fee, it can be pretty easy to blow off the phone to do something more appealing. But how much does that blow off cost YOU?

I'd be interested in hearing who is doing something like this already and how they have it structured.

Meg

 

[hogjowl]

Years ago, when I first started out, I basically built my business from zero using telemarketers. They were paid straight commission on the jobs they sold. No hassles, no confusion. They made good money on their sales. Straight %.

I am paying my son straight commission. He makes a percentage of every job he does. Nothing confusing or hard to understand. If he doesn't work, he doesn't get paid. Again ... straight %.

Office people would be different, of course. They may or may not have much to do with the actual sale. My youngest daughter is sending out signals that she may want to come into the business after she graduates from college. If she does, she will be answering the phones and doing estimates. She will also be paid a commission on total revenue. Since she will be answering the phones and doing estimates, she will be paid a % on gross revenue. It will be harder to separate her sales from the total, so I will keep it simple and pay her off total gross.

If we grow beyond that point and add techs ... they too will be paid a commission on jobs worked.

If we add office staff ... I will want to pay them a commission off gross ... I will work hard to maintain the commissions because I see it as a motivational factor ... but time will tell on whether or not I can take a woman who really ought to be home in the kitchen raising babies and teach her to understand how much better off she is working for commissions rather than an hourly rate.

You know, women can be difficult.

 

[TomKing]

Can you pay them commission? sure if you don't want them around long. IMO

You might be able to pay a kicker for % of job booked. Like Meg said PITA to track. We tried.

I would not suggest you sell the job as do what you want during the day.

What I want is people working hard to better our company. Not working hard at just getting by. That is what most will do if not in a office with a set structure.

Sure some might have found that one in a million most won't.

Set up a office, set up a CSR and set up a system to grow baby!

The old saying goes You can't expect what you can't inspect. Kind a hard to do that in someone elses home.

Their are no short cuts to good growth and development of your company.

Good luck.

PS would you mind filling out your profile kind of nice to know who we are sharing with. You will get more help the more you are known on the board. At least thats been my experience. Thanks

 

[hogjowl]

"I would not suggest you sell the job as do what you want during the day."

What?

 

[Shane Deubell]

Guess you could offer a $ amount per call answered and set amount of hours per week for marketing tasks like mailers, emails etc.

I wouldnt but you could....

 

[idreadnought]

I guess the general consensus is that it can't be done or the person won't last long. However that is exactly what I do every month and I grew my company 5 fold paying commission to the phone person from day one.

When I was only doing about 8k per month I hired a woman part time for a set fee to answer phones. We got busy and I felt bad that she was working harder. So everything over 10k I gave her a percentage per month. This includes a percentage off the total gross of the company per month. At the beginning she would work from home but now she works in the office because it is much more efficient.

I like paying commission to all my staff. The harder they work the more they should make. It has worked great for me and I think I have one of the best phone people in the industry.

 

[Shane Deubell]

Sure, why not try it out.

That is just our experience.

 

[Mikey P]

damn, booked 3 today on a Sunday


one more small commercial wanting after hours...but I'm not so sure we want to do it

 

[Papa John]

Check your state laws b4 your proceed. In California it can be a challenge-- commission only employees are now entitled to overtime-- unless its a service and their regular rate is already higher then the state imposed overtime rate. 1099 -ng them can also be tricky-- I think there are about 23 criteria to determine if they are Employee or sub-contractor?

Who would have thought UBER drivers were employees when that are using their own can and they choose there own hours!!-- more proof that our court system is messed up-- Judges are just Lawyers who couldn't make it in the competitive business of being a lawyer--

But its still better then maybe any other country--
in India a man had sex with a married women So the court decided to punish him by having his two sisters Raped!-- WTF..

 

[Papa John]

I am trying to come up with a fair program for payment for an employee to work from their home and pay them on a per item basis. That way they are not tied to a desk and can go about their day and answer phone as needed,emails as needed, send thank you cards etc. Any ideas or suggestions??? Thanks for any comments

Oh also try FittleBug-- it will avoid all the legal issues and it works 24/7-- wasn't Service monster to replace Full circle?

 

[smastio]

Oh also try FittleBug-- it will avoid all the legal issues and it works 24/7-- wasn't Service monster to replace Full circle?

Lol " The Ultimate Conversion" - Booked, DONE!