sales, work-for-hireI’d like to find some contract-based sales people in my state (Idaho). Does that concept make sense? How do I go about doing it?
It makes very good sense. It’s called referral marketing, indirect sales channels (i.e. resellers), or affiliate marketing depending on the setup.
Let’s start by getting the obvious out of the way… The commission depends:
On your industry.
On what you’re selling.
On how unique what you’re selling is.
On how easy it is to convince users to check out what you have to offer.
On your conversion rate once they send you a lead.
Some pointers:
If your conversion rate is below industry average (~2.5%), just forget it – you may find some but they’ll only stick around if they really like you. If it’s good (5% or so) you’ll likely generate interest. If it’s excellent (10% or more), affiliates will come to you.
In some sectors your affiliates (or more appropriately, resellers) might be happy with 5% commissions. In others, they’ll expect 50% or more before raising a finger.
Related to the latter point, the commission you’ll expect will be very different depending on whether you’re mentioning the product as an aside as bonus potential revenue, actively reselling what a supplier offers with a sales team, or operating as an affiliate and hoping to make a living off of it. For instance, if you mention a book as part of your content marketing, you’ll be satisfied with Amazon’s standard puny affiliate commission. At the other extreme, if you’re actively referring users to an info product, you’ll want a 50% commission – or more, if you’ve a big list.
From a psychology viewpoint, there’s a trap that you must avoid. Below a $$$ threshold, you’re referring people “because you like the product or service”. Above a certain threshold, you’re referring people “because you can make good money doing so”. Call the first “tipping off referrers” if you will, and the second “commissioning affiliate marketers”. Anything in between, and you’re throwing money out the window because your affiliates won’t be making enough to actively send you leads – and they’ll realize it very, very fast, so you’ll just be over-rewarding passive referrers.
If you’re aiming for referrals more than resellers and affiliates, something as low as nothing at all (requires that you send them a lead every so often) or a dinner works. Or perhaps two sport event tickets or two opera tickets or whatever. Be creative based on what they like. There are plenty of colorful ways to get referrals.
As to finding them, consider synergies. For instance:
Who can you partner with in such a way that you send leads to them and vice versa?
Who has an audience that is potentially interested in what you’re offering, without being your competitor?
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