I have an advertising business and I'm hiring commission-only sales reps to work from home. After putting up some job listings I got a lot of calls and emails. A couple people asked me if they need to pay me to get started. I obviously said no, but it got me thinking, maybe I should start a pyramid scheme and have people pay me. That's really awful, but then again so is Herbalife, and they're a massive publicly traded corporation.

Anyway I probably won't do it. Really my biggest problem is hiring reps that can actually do the job from home. My feeling is that I'll have to hire 20 for every 1 rep that actually succeeds. Massive turnover, as all sales jobs generally have. Another problem is making sure reps are actually doing their job.

As they are 1099 contractors, legally speaking I can't tell them what to do... however, we've all been on the other side of that and had employers micromanage us. There's the law, and then the real world. I'm finding that people often need managers on their ass or they won't get anything done.

I'm kind of rambling now... but I'm curious if anyone has ever built a sales team. Seems interesting, as if all you need to do is create a halfway decent product (or copy one) and have reps all over the country sell it... can't be all that hard to make tons of money that way...

If you are only paying commission I wouldn't expect anyone who is actually capable of selling to stay with you for long as there will almost certainly be greener pastures for them elsewhere in the immediate future.

Yeah there are ways to make a living that don't involve feeling THAT dirty. A little dirty is fine... But taking those people's money is all the way dirty.

On another note I think that trying to hire work from home contractors and then wanting them to 'do their job' is hopeless. You have to hire people who are already doing this kind of sales or your success rate is going to be so close to 0% that it will be impossible to tell the difference.

The catch-22 of course is "if they are already doing this why do they need me?"

Most likely they don't. There has to be a better way to be in sales than this.

That may well be, but it may not be. It's easy to think everyone behaves just like us. I think there are a lot of people out there who perform well while working on their own, in their own homes, working their own hours.

As to why they need me: they need a product to sell. Sure, there are many products out there. They key is finding the right fit, the right thing for their personality. In a way it's the same idea as franchising. I personally think buying a franchise is the dumbest thing you can do: why pay someone when you can just copy it and do it without the fees and upfront cost. But, people still buy franchises.

I work from home on a fully commissioned job. I also already had a full blown book of business (and it was in a niche with room for expansion to either replace lost customers or to just plain grow) before I made that leap.

The issue is that most people like us gravitate towards the best sales opportunities. It's your ability to create one of the best situations I have doubts about. Either you aren't doing enough to support them or you're taking too big of a cut. It's very hard not to do one or the other and still turn a profit.

Well you should have doubts about me as you don't know me or know what my product is. But your existence proves that it's possible with the right product and commission structure - both things I'm willing to tweak until I get it right... I want my reps to be making six figures. Some of that is up to me, some of that is up to them.

Are you planning on providing training?

Yes of course. The challenge is training when people aren't together in an office... but skype and phone training, scripts, etc are all provided