Evan Carmichael advises an office manager at a landscaping company to document processes by interviewing the owner and former employees, then creating instructional videos with Camtasia and written guides. For sales compensation, he recommends a 25-35% commission range adjusted for profit margins, with a ramp-up period to support new hires.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. In today's episode, I'm going to answer a question from one of my newsletter readers, Amy, who wrote in asking about the landscaping company that she's working for. The owner's name is Dave, and she had a couple questions. So she wrote in saying, I'm the office manager at this company. I've discovered that I'm not qualified for this job, but I'm trying to succeed and have a couple questions. How do I begin creating the structure, processes, and procedures to the business so that anyone could walk in and run the office and manage the employees? Many office staff has had turnovers, resulted in total dismantling of our processes and procedures that Dave, the owner, has implemented over the years. And then how do I create a sales compensation plan that would attract a salesperson but be structured so that the company does not lose money. Help. So Amy, thank you for the question. A really tough situation to be in. Congrats on owning up to the job and trying to make it your own and be successful at it, and for reaching out for help. So to kind of help answer those questions, the first part about sales, sorry, the procedures, systems, and all that, getting that going for your business, I think the first thing you need to do is talk to the people who have done that job before. So it sounds like Dave is probably your best bet, and as the owner, I know he's probably running around with a million thing to do, but if he's done that job and has gone out and he knows how he wants a certain thing done, then he's probably the best person to sit down and talk to. What might be an easy way to do it is instead of having him write a manual, which can be really time-consuming and a lot of entrepreneurs don't like to do that, you could do an either audio recording, so you could just ask him questions, do an interview, or you could film him on the job. So you can go out to a job with him and say, this is how we cut the grass, or this is how we lay sod, or whatever it is that you want to lay out your systems and procedures for. And having those videos could be really instructional for new people who are coming on board to just watch exactly how it's been done and not always then have to use up Dave's time. A quick example, my wife runs a salsa dancing business and she started off being the only instructor and she was teaching 7 days a week and was burning out and she was the only one doing what she was doing and it was hard for her to find people to come on and teach under her. And as she expanded her business, she realized, you know, she can only be one person for so long. To grow, I have to go beyond myself. And she created videos that laid out exactly what she did in every class so that when she brought on her new instructors, they could watch the videos and teach it the same way that she had done. And it doesn't mean that she has to go and teach them every single time herself. So it could be the same example with Dave, where if you can go and create these videos And you can just do really rough cuts. It doesn't have to be professionally edited. It's only for internal purposes. And maybe it's up to you to then kind of cut out the best parts and see what's really relevant. And it'll save a lot of time compared to, you know, Dave having to write a formal manual. The other option would be to go and try to find people who have done the job for the company in the past. You said there's been a lot of turnover. Maybe you can find somebody who's been really good in the past and had to leave for, you know, whatever reason. Hopefully they're still on good terms with the business. And approach them to say, you know, we're trying to create a video series or training manual to help people who are coming into the job. You know, would you mind sitting down with us for half a day or day and, you know, helping us, you know, from remembering what you did before on the job? So you have your former employees come and help you out. That's assuming, you know, they like the business and they had a good relationship with you guys and you can still contact them. But you have to start talking to somebody who's gone through the process. So start with Dave, and he's able to do it, that's great. And if Dave doesn't know, then start trying to contact your older employees and, you know, see if they'd be willing to come back and help out for a day or half a day. And the important lesson kind of going forward is start documenting everything now, right? So if you're in the office, think about all the things that you're doing on a regular basis and how can that be documented so somebody can come in later on and do it really easily. So it could be, again, just, you know, paper documents that you're writing in a Word document you send people. I found that that can work to some degree, but it's better if you can do some kind of videos as well. So if it's office type of work, at my business we use a software called Camtasia, which will record your screen and allow you to talk into a microphone so people can see exactly what you're doing and can hear your voice as you explain what you're doing. So it's a lot better training than just looking over a Word document. So hopefully that will help. Videos are definitely a great way to go, and it can definitely be, you know, super low budget. It doesn't have to be high production quality if it's only going to be used for internal purposes. For the sales compensation, it really depends on your business and your margins. So if you have a high margin business, you can afford to give up a greater percentage. When I was in software sales, I had my own software company. We hired salespeople to come work for us and organizations to come, you know, help sell the software for us. And we would give up between 25% and 35% commission, just, you know, top line revenue to give them a huge incentive to want to go and sell to our potential customers. Now you probably couldn't afford that because you have much higher costs associated with your business than we do in a software type of company. So you have to find something that makes sense depending on your margins. Usually, I mean, it's great to try to get a salesperson who comes on a commission only. On that scenario, then you're not spending anything until you're actually getting money coming in the door. But it's usually pretty hard to attract salespeople to do commission only from the start. There's usually a ramp-up period. It could be a couple months if it's not too difficult business, and it shouldn't take, you know, too long for people to jump into. But you want to support your salespeople, and you want to try to make that investment. So say it's 3 months to get ramped up to start making sales, then, you know, you have to support them with some kind of salary, or you can see a draw against commission, so that, you know, their eventual goal is to be commission only. But you got to get them to that point where they're able to support themselves. That will help you attract a higher caliber salesperson because they show that, you know, you're really believing in them and you're a solid company and you're gonna help support them through those first couple months where they're still learning. It is a financial outlay, so that's the kind of downside, but you're more likely to get highly talented people instead of the ones who will come on just for, you know, commission, and they'll probably leave you really quickly when they can go get another job that pays faster. So you don't necessarily just want to go for those 100% commission people right from the start. So hopefully that helps. You know, I feel bad for your situation, but hopefully there's some information here that can help you get that business going again and reignite Dave's passion for the company. If you have other questions, feel free to leave a comment under this video and I'd be happy to answer them. And for everybody watching, if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up. It makes me want to do more of these videos for you. And if you have a question or comments for Amy as well, feel free to leave it under the video in the comment section. So thank you, and we'll see you on the next episode.
