Agents commissions

[pmeswani]

That tells me that you have a bunch of sales people that go out for lunch and are not seen again until they crawl out from under their desks the following morning

Disagree. I've seen their sales forecasts and are very impressive. Talking in excess of £1m.

[DodgyAgent]

Disagree. I've seen their sales forecasts and are very impressive. Talking in excess of £1m.

What are they selling? supertankers? In which case they've sold one life raft in a year.
presumably you have also worked in a recruitment agency environment, which would of course give you a position from which to make an objective judgement?

[expat]

I cannot see any explanation for you to make any sort of judgement on how much an agent earns unless that judgement is made on "what is negotiated" or "what is morally fair". If someone makes a judgement on the basis of "what is fair" then I will ask what is the concept of "fairness" based upon?

As I said in my previous post we are not selling a typical business model, we are placing temps. If the business model is "not right" then the market would simply determine a different model.

I always invite critics of the current model to offer an alternative and then prove that it works (Denny ).

If you want agencies to merely do the introduction and then step away and leave the contractors to be paid directly by the client, first of all try and imagine the problems that this would create, with every Tom Dick contractor wanting to argue the toss over every piece of minutiae of his contract.
And would contractors and clients be prepared to sign up to legally underpinned clauses that would ensure that we would indeed receive our commission?

I insist that I am not making moral judgements here. When I do, I usually make it unmissably clear.

The market allows several models, it's often HR departments that do not. I am not confident that the reason for that is always ethical and moral.

I have seen my model work once, when I set up a contract directly, but the PM then said that HR insisted that I went through an agency. Nevertheless, he and I fixed my rate, and he took care of paying the agency on top.

It worked fine, and I didn't even know what the agency were taking (after all, it was none of my business), but the PM did (and it was his business), and the PM also knew how much I was making for the work I was doing for him (which I regard as his business too).

No problems with the contract, I signed the standard agency contract. Of course I shouldn't have done: I could see no justification for the handcuff clause when I had found the contract, but that was my mistake and my problem.

[DodgyAgent]

I insist that I am not making moral judgements here. When I do, I usually make it unmissably clear.

The market allows several models, it's often HR departments that do not. I am not confident that the reason for that is always ethical and moral.

I have seen my model work once, when I set up a contract directly, but the PM then said that HR insisted that I went through an agency. Nevertheless, he and I fixed my rate, and he took care of paying the agency on top.

It worked fine, and I didn't even know what the agency were taking (after all, it was none of my business), but the PM did (and it was his business), and the PM also knew how much I was making for the work I was doing for him (which I regard as his business too).

No problems with the contract, I signed the standard agency contract. Of course I shouldn't have done: I could see no justification for the handcuff clause when I had found the contract, but that was my mistake and my problem.

I cannot argue with that expat. I would be delighted to receive my commission without having to worry about funding the payroll (which accounts for about 2.5% of the total monthly cost)

We do not have the control or levels of influence to push this model and we are driven by what the client wants

[Another Dodgy Agent]

Disagree. I've seen their sales forecasts and are very impressive. Talking in excess of £1m.

I guess its all about scale really, I bring in around £850K profit per year and thats considered average.

[TheFaQQer]

Sounds like DA and ADA need to have a nice cup of tea and a break. Pay no attention to the nasty posters - some of us love you (OK maybe not quite - some of us acknowledge the job that you do and don't care what rate you get paid as long as you are getting us a fair old whack!)

It's been said before, and will no doubt be said again - those that are on a high daily / hourly rate tend to be on the "I don't care what you make, as I make more than enough, thanks" point of view; those that are on a lower rate are more sensitive to any perception that the agent is making an "unfair" margin on their daily rate.

I'd love to work direct more, don't get me wrong. Can I be bothered with getting off my @rse and trying to sell my services, though? Absolutely not. I'd much rather let someone who (hopefully) is better at the sales job do that part, and let me do the techy bit and convince the client that I'm the best person for the job.

The way that I view the relationship with agents is that I have just out-sourced by sales and marketing department to people who can do the job better than I can. For that, I'm happy to pay for the service (although I'd like less fishing calls please).

[Another Dodgy Agent]

Sounds like DA and ADA need to have a nice cup of tea and a break. Pay no attention to the nasty posters - some of us love you (OK maybe not quite - some of us acknowledge the job that you do and don't care what rate you get paid as long as you are getting us a fair old whack!)

It's been said before, and will no doubt be said again - those that are on a high daily / hourly rate tend to be on the "I don't care what you make, as I make more than enough, thanks" point of view; those that are on a lower rate are more sensitive to any perception that the agent is making an "unfair" margin on their daily rate.

I'd love to work direct more, don't get me wrong. Can I be bothered with getting off my @rse and trying to sell my services, though? Absolutely not. I'd much rather let someone who (hopefully) is better at the sales job do that part, and let me do the techy bit and convince the client that I'm the best person for the job.

The way that I view the relationship with agents is that I have just out-sourced by sales and marketing department to people who can do the job better than I can. For that, I'm happy to pay for the service (although I'd like less fishing calls please).

Sorry, just had a couple of perm roles come in which I have just organised and delegated down to the team. Right where were we, ahh yes agencies. Personally I would have thought that the biggest benefit of an agency is that you are paid in advance then the agent chases the company you are working at for the money, saving you have to do this yourself. We employ someone in our accounts whose entire role is credit control. Now surely it must be better to have the option of being paid weekly rather than having to wait 3 months chasing down a big corporate?

[expat]

Sorry, just had a couple of perm roles come in which I have just organised and delegated down to the team. Right where were we, ahh yes agencies. Personally I would have thought that the biggest benefit of an agency is that you are paid in advance then the agent chases the company you are working at for the money, saving you have to do this yourself. We employ someone in our accounts whose entire role is credit control. Now surely it must be better to have the option of being paid weekly rather than having to wait 3 months chasing down a big corporate?

It's better but it's not worth a whole helluva lot. Worst case, you just live off a 17% APR credit card: then you're running say 1 month's money at 2 months, and 1 month's at 1 month (and 1 month at par with agency payment);
= say 10000 at 2 x 1.5%
+ 10000 at 1 x 1.5%
= 450.
I.e. (sorry for back of envelope calc) it costs you 450/10000 = 4.5% to carry it, if you dan't have a reserve for this purpose.

A cost, but not overwhelming.

[Bunk]

Normally I would be the last one to stick up for agents but I recently worked for a client that went into administration. At the time I had 6 weeks of invoices which I sent to the agency. I still got paid but they'll have been lucky to get back any of that from the client. Those 6 weeks of invoices could easily have wiped out the commission they'd made from me for the last year so for once I was glad to have the agency between me and the client. I now look at their cut as a kind of insurance policy against a client going under. And the way things are going right now there's an increased risk of that happening.

[YHB]

I guess its all about scale really, I bring in around £850K profit per year and thats considered average.

Why not then set up on your own? as assuming your employer takes most of that.