Commission sales

[Tim b]

We are looking at using commission based salespeople and had posted a job description on elance. We have used them before successfully on other types of projects and thought it would be a good fit. Our posting was rejected as they have a prohibition against performance based pay.

Are there other places similar to elance in quality and methodology that allow such arrangements?

The service being sold is hands on professional event decorating training. A typical student pays $2300 for the two week, ten day course. In the past we have hire local people and paid 6-10% commissions. Many students attend from all over the world and we would like to have localized sales people. Classes are offered currently in English and Spanish.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions

Tim Ballering
EventDecoratingAcademy.com

[AlexMoen]

If you can't find a site that allows that, my recommendation would be to treat it like a regular job and post it online and go through the traditional hiring/interviewing process.

[seth121]

You can find affiliates to sell your products through affiliate networks. Many people go through this route, but you will need a good tracking system to track payouts etc. But it will cost more depending on how good the affiliate is, but well worth the extra cost.

[AlexMoen]

Ah, yes, affiliates, good idea.

Also, you could try adding a low base payment and incentivize them further based on production (where the commission would/should actually be the larger payment), so that you can access the sites mentioned before.

[Tim b]

You can find affiliates to sell your products through affiliate networks.

Having never used affiliate marketing, is there a good place to start?

You state that affiliate marketing could be expensive. We have previously paid local sales reps hired through traditional methods 6-8%, which equates to $138 to $184 for booking a full two week course. Is this in the ball park or would we expect to pay more?

Thanks!

[seth121]

Hi Tim b,

Yeah I don't have any experience with travel affiliates, but I would type into the browser travel affiliates and see what comes up. A good forum to learn some things about affiliate marketing is through the digital point forums. They have a good reputation and the forums are moderated well. But do some research on travel affiliates then look on youtube for people who are selling travel related affiliated products and see how many views they get and the quality of their video and then contact them to see if they would be interested in selling your product online by commission.

As for the price you will pay for a good affiliate it really depends. If the affiliate has a good reputation and has a good amount of followers then it's worth it to pay the extra percentage because their volume of sales would more than make up for the cost. But again I can't confirm a range being that I am not familiar in the travel affiliate market.

Another good place to advertise is on tumblr, digg, reddit and few other social bookmarking sites. Also Squidoo lens is great. But in order for you to show up on the first page of Digg you need atleast 200 votes, but there a ways of doing that.

If you need more information just let me know

[SeanyG]

Just brainstorm on these questions:

"What companies / sites online would have large lists (email or phone) of the people that I want to get at?"

"What can I offer them to let their list (my target market) know about my job opportunity (or product, or service)?

Hope this helps,

~Sean