Understanding Self Employed Commission-Only Sales Agents
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You’ll Learn: Why professional self employed sales agents choose their profession – It’s quite amazing how misunderstood professional self employed sales agents are. You’ll discover exactly what a self employed sales agents is and what motivates someone to leave the security of a well paid job and go out and work for commission without a salary. Challenges sales agents face – You’ll discover some of the most common challenges that a self employed sales rep faces and how to ensure that your company is prepared and has accounted for these when structuring your opportunity. How self employed sales agents conduct their business – You discover how self-employed sales agents structure and conduct their business, and where your opportunity might fit into to their business needs. What should you offer in terms of commission – You might not be prepared for, or even like what you’re about to hear, but by the time we have covered this topic you will know what you need to think about in terms of ensuring that your commission structure is appealing and attractive to your sales agents. What do sales agents need from your company in order to start selling – We’ll take you from start to finish and detail exactly what you will need to provide your sales agents with in order to ensure they not only have the confidence and knowledge to represent your company, but the physical materials needed to make their job easy. What kind of sales agent should you partner with – Taking on a new sales agent can be very exciting and many companies jump in too quickly and make the mistake of taking on anyone that shows an interest in what they do. We’ll show you how to take a step back and identify the kind of sales agents you should consider taking on, as well as those that may not be suited to your particular opportunity. Building Trust and long term relationships – You’ll learn the key aspects of building trust with your prospective sales agents and how to ensure that your professional working relationships are long term success stories. We’ll also show you how to avoid some of the most common mistakes that can cost you great sales agents. Why are we holding this? Agents tell us time and time again that they are looking to work with Companies who understand and respect the way they work. This series has been developed to give Companies a head start in their recruitment once the CommissionCrowd platform goes live.
Transcript of Understanding Self Employed Commission-Only Sales Agents
Founders
Laura McGregor
Co-Founder
Product Development,
Visionary/Architect, Project
Manager, Marketer
Ryan Mattock
Co-Founder
Content Creator, Customer
Development/Support,
Marketer, Growth Hacker
Alistair Robinson
Co-Founder
Lead Developer, Sys
admin, Toolsmith,
Designer
“OUR STORY: Once upon a time…a marketer, an operations manager and a software
developer decided to save principals & independent sales agents a lot of time, resources,
hassle and money by building simple, awesome software for the commission-only sales
industry.”
AGENDA
• Overview & Industry Challenges
• Private Beta – Lifetime VIP Founding Membership
• What is a self-employed sales agent
• Challenges sales agents face
• How self employed sales agents conduct their business
• What should you offer in terms of commission
• What do sales agents need from your company in order to start
selling
• What kind of sales agent should you partner with
• Building Trust and long term relationships
Industries & Companies that work with self employed sales agents
Sample Industries
Sample Companies
Business
Services
Consumer
Goods
Financial
Services
Health
Care
High
Tech
Manufacturing
It’s a growing concept with over 35% of Fortune 500 companies likely to utilize at least
some outsourced sales in their businesses between now and 2015.
The Industry Challenges
CONNECTING
There is a lack of understanding
Fragmented Industry
Expensive and not targeted enough
Uncertainty around sales agents track
record
The Industry Challenges
MANAGING
Existing niche technology is bad
Multiple remote working is complex
Unsure of pipeline status. Loosing
leads
No oversight on schedule, activity,
training
The Industry Challenges
COLLABORATING
Company Information slow to distribute and share
Difficult to share learning across all
agents
Difficult and timely to share feedback from customers
Control over access and stored
documents
The Industry Challenges
INCREASING SALES
Multiple reports in various formats
Bad first impressions lead to bad relationships
Slow growth Bad management = bad business
The Solution
CommissionCrowd is a powerful sales platform that not only facilitates connections between professional independent
commission-only sales agents and Company Principals globally, but also ensures that both parties have easy-to-use
functionality to manage multiple remote working relationships effectively.
We're simplifying the best from: job boards, sales force automation, sales/pipeline CRM, as well as modern productivity tools,
and building an affordable, beautifully designed web application for the commission-only sales industry.
The Solution
Connect – Attract the best, expand and grow
your business
Manage – Save time, resource & money
Collaborate - Eradicateconfusion, save time &
sanity
Sell More - Better processes,
opportunities & relationships
View All Features Here
Watch Now To Learn More
Benefits of working with self employed sales agents
• Reduced up front costs and risk associated with taking on
new employees
• Utilise professionals that have pre-existing contacts based
on years of experience within a particular industry
• Not reliant on local talent. Expanding your search can lead
you to truly great sales people
• Enter new markets with the help of agents who already
understand key players, culture, issues, competitors and
opportunities
• Professional self employed sales agents usually share the
same business objectives as the companies they have
working relationships with.
What is a self-employed sales agent?
• Is an entrepreneur that chooses to work for themself
• Has experience and potentially an existing database of
contacts
• Wants to break away from the constraints of employment
• Has drive, ambition and focus
• Is supremely confident in their ability to sell
• Wants to build a portfolio of companies they work with and
does not need to rely on a small wage to keep them tied
into one company
• A good sales agent will choose not work with companies
that have conflicting interests
A self-employed sales agent is not:
• Someone desperate for work that they are willing to
work for free
• Someone that will represent a company with poor
products/services
• Willing to work for low levels of commission
Agent Challenges
Knowledge, Trust &
Communication
Financial risk & pressure
Agents managing 6 –12 different
lines/companies
Need to spend more time
selling and less time reporting or
talking about selling
Commission payments slow, reconciliation
difficult
Commission-Only Sales Partner’s
Rookie
Ambitious, background in sales few
contacts. New to self-employment
All Rounder
Fragmented network of contacts
Player
Targeted networks of contacts in
many industries
King Pin
Targeted network of contacts in a specific industry
Think Carefully About Your Commission Structure
Getting your commission structure right is essential! You can have the best product or service in the world but if you pay
peanuts you get monkeys.
In order to attract the best self employed sales agents and stand a chance of growing your business, you must be willing to
compensate your agents adequately.
Residual Commission Structure
Probably the most effective commission structure is the residual commission model. This is when your sales agents are paid a
percentage of any repeat orders that come around due to initial business which has been closed by your agent. This is also the
case if your services are billed to the client monthly.
There are three reasons why this structure works well:
1. Your self employed sales agents will work very hard to close new business and add to their existing commissions. Their
earnings have the potential to grow rapidly and it acts as a guaranteed income after a while.
2. Your sales agents will be more willing to manage their own accounts as they will want to keep their commissions coming in
for a long time. This frees up more time for managers to concentrate on other areas of the business.
3. You stay top of mind (so long as they also like to work with you)
Building Trust & Great Partnerships
"Usually the only time a rep will leave a manufacturer that they are having success with is due to being
treated poorly" - Anon (sales rep with 30+ years experience)
Customer Service
Pay commission accurately and on
time
Have great marketing materials
Every success should strengthen
the long term relationship
Communication, Respect,
partnership mind-set
"The cost of manufacturer's reps scale with our business making it more efficient" - Bob
Alesio, Director AMCI
Building Trust & Great Partnerships
TrainingMarketing Materials /
Demo Products
Clear policies and templates
SupportLeads (if
applicable)Partnership
Agents: Our Solutions
Connect – Expand your portfolio & grow your businessFind global opportunities from educated principals with the tools to seamlessly work with you
Get exposure and showcase your profile, achievements, track record and experience
Earn incentivizes for managing your business and bringing in new talent to the system
Earn cash bonuses to remove financial friction and ability to stick with a new line in early months
Integrate social selling easily into your daily routine to help with earning incentives and lead generation
Manage – Save time, resource & moneyMobile first, cloud based SaaS platform and API available anywhere, anytime on any device
A Sales CRM that you will actually want to use due to it’s power and simplicity (we promise)
Manage leads, emails, calendar, telephone conversations, tasks, pipeline, territory, commissions, training and performance
Manage to principals in one place, just by updating your CRM
Invoice and track, reconcile and receive commission payments through the system
Export financial data to your accounting package or send directly to your accountant
Track activity, availability, meeting notes and customer issues across all principals
Earn commissions on leads generated in your pipeline even after you leave an opportunity
Easily get feedback and make changes to your sales process
Identify key characteristics of top performing opportunities / lines
Identify current training and future training requirements
Identify issues that threaten market share, competition and profit performance
Collaborate - Eradicate confusion, save time & sanityAccess, upload and share important documents and announcements in one place
Schedule or attend conference calls, training sessions, morning meetings
Use the communication wall to send broadcasts, ring the bell, say thank you, collaborate on new ideas, products etc.
Interact with other agents to share learning
Sell More - Better processes, opportunities & relationshipsHave more time to sell, stay on top of admin and income
Have a record of all invoices and deals in one place.
Rep councils are now automated into the sales relationship
Build better partnerships with principals
Other Webinars
Contact Us
Laura McGregor
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 0131 618 2300
Ryan Mattock
Email: [email protected]
Alistair Robinson
Email: [email protected]
www.commissioncrowd.com
We’re developing in the South
of France in a tiny village
called Simorre
