Employees

[JIMRPT@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 8/01/1999 6:24:03 PM, Andrew wrote:

<<As my shop work has grown I have hired people to fill whatever my needs 
were 
there, but I no longer have the time to adequately service even a fraction of 
my tuning customers.  I don't want to lose contact with all these people 
because they are a great source of work for the shop.>>

Andrew;
  You have gotten some good answers to this opportunity/problem.
 There is another way of looking at this situation that 'might' answer all of 
your objectives. I haven't thought through all the tax/employee angles on 
this line of thought and suggest that you run it by your accountant/lawyer 
before taking action on anything I might suggest.......That said.............
  
A. You are in an excellent position to raise your prices, increase your 
income, and reduce your workload all at the same time.  With a rise in price 
you will lose some of your marginal customers but typically will earn more, 
with fewer tunings, and still be able to handle all your own work depending 
on your customer/frequency base.
B. Any tech who has enough drive to be a good 'employee' will have enough 
drive to run their own business.  This is a generality of course and there 
are many exceptions but it is something that you must keep in mind when 
selecting a subcontractor/employee.
C. The secret to a succesful arrangement of this nature is to give everyone 
involved enough of the pie to keep them interested in maintaining a status 
quo for long enough periods to make the efforts involved worthwhile.
D. A tech working subcontract through another tech has the right to expect 
the lions share of any tuning/minor repair  fees earned. In return for this 
'lions share' of the fee the tech involved must be willing to be 'Andrews' 
tuner' named so&so, and not so&so who tunes for Andrew......there is a vast 
difference between the two with the former allowing you to retain control and 
the latter transferring control to the tuner, so&so.
E. What is a "lions share"? I suppose that depends on the area of the country 
but I would expect a split of10/90% to 15/85% to be reasonable. For their 
90/85% the subcontract tech can expect to get prescheduled appts and or 
names/phone numbers/needed info to do their own scheduling; as well as a 
guaranteed level of work spread over a years period, or whatever is a 
mutually agreeable period. The customers serviced in this arragement would be 
the Contracing techs. In addition any major work created above the normal 
tuning service would be generated for the Contracting tech.
F. For their 10/15% the contracting tech should be willing to take incoming 
service requests, parcel them out in a suitable manner, i.e., not give the 
sub-contracting tech 'all' of the dogs/distant calls :-), field questions, 
address complaints, prequalify as to service needs (pitch raise/minor 
regulation) as much as is possible to aid in scheduling, etc.  
G. As to major repair work for the shop, as generated by the subcontract 
tech, the contracting tech should be willing to offer a "bird dog" fee in the 
form of a percentage of the dollar value generated by the work.........what 
is a mutually agreeable percentage for said fee?  I don't know but somewhere 
between 5% and 15% depending on how the repair costs are figured I suppose. 
This "bird dog" fee
would be in addition to any moneys due for 'shop work' on said repair job 
done by the subcontract tech.
F. As a means of retaining control of customer base 'all' leads/appts given 
and work done by the subcontract tech should be on the Contracting techs 
leterhead/invoice/service call request. No work should be allowed to be 
billed direct by the subcontract tech and any collections efforts should be 
absorbed by the Contracting tech.

 This Contractor/Subcontractor has many benefits and as many pitfalls but the 
benefits between parties of good will and intentions far outweigh the 
pitfalls.
My view.
Jim Bryant (FL)