# How much to pay sales arborist?



## ChippersTreeSvc (Jun 21, 2011)

Im looking to hire a sales arborist for our company. For those of you guys that have sales arborist for your company, would you say paying the sales arborist full commission would be better? Or hourly wage plus lower commission? Ive always liked the idea of full commission better because the pay will the depend in the arborists performance. What do you guys prefer?


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## BC WetCoast (Jun 22, 2011)

It's a trade off, whether to pay full commission or salary/commission. 

What happens if he underbids a job? No commission? That wouldn't fly if he was on full commission. What about underbidding many jobs? 

How extensive is your marketing? Are you getting calls? You're going to have to pay a higher commission rate, if he has to go door-to-door to drum up business. Door to door is much less productive that having pre arranged appointments. 

If he is paid based on profitability of the job, does he have a say in who does the work? If you have more than one crew, a job gets bid based on the productiviyt of the 'better' crew and ends up being done by the 'slower' crew, does this affect his commission.

Will you do any form of tree work, or is his restricted in what type of work he can sell?

I think these are some questions you have to ask yourself before you start the hiring process.


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## ChippersTreeSvc (Jun 23, 2011)

BC WetCoast said:


> It's a trade off, whether to pay full commission or salary/commission.
> 
> What happens if he underbids a job? No commission? That wouldn't fly if he was on full commission. What about underbidding many jobs?
> 
> ...


 
I agree with what you say. On average we get about 3-5 calls daily. I'm not paying for any advertising for now since we are pretty busy with the repeat, referred or customers that find us through the internet from our website. But if I was to hire a sales arborist, I might pick up a PPC advertising or so to generate leads.
What I was thinking is 10% commission of the sale per crew up to $6,000.00 per week, if it exceeds the amount, bump the commission to 12%. If sales arborist generated new leads, we pay 12-15% for the time generated, and 10-12% when customers repeat. We provide mobile number, gas and truck.
On bidding the work, I would be with the arborist for about 2 weeks bidding work see how close we are on prices. If he underbid the job, the commission would still be the same, but as long as it is not repeatedly. If it is, we would have to sit down and talk. Everyone under bids a job once in a while(not that I like to).
My 2 crews of men are pretty productive right now, but jobs should be bidded on a workman like manner. This is something that I would be on top of by offering bonuses if the jobs get done faster that expected while being done right. 
What do you guys think of the percentages of the commission I have above?


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