Instead of an hourly pay contract like we've been doing, a client and I are going to talk about: a) establishing a revenue baseline the business has been producing b) paying me a % over this revenue baseline moving forward So I'm rewarded for increases in organics and search engine marketing I can provide. My duties would be to tune the product data that gets uploaded to Shopilla, Yahoo Shopping, Google Base, PriceGrabber etc. I've been doing this for them for a year, and there is room for performance increase. My questions are: a) any experiences doing this? b) what % of the revenue increase over the baseline should I ask for?
If you're doing it based on revenue increases, why not just start a similar site yourself? You're doing all the work and taking but a portion of the proceeds.
Mmmm. It's high-end women's clothing. They have all the relationships with wholesalers, and I'd not want to replicate that work, plus stock $ of clothing. There's a barrier to entry, for sure.
a) any experiences doing this? Yes i have used this method to encourage my worker to work harder for me. b) what % of the revenue increase over the baseline should I ask for? To be fair extra 10% for increase in sales of 10% is fair enough for both party.
umm... Ethics!! To be honest, in my experience these types of payment arrangements very rarely work out. Be sure to have every possible contingency worked out in writing... If you and your "employer" are in different states it will be even more challenging. If you don't get paid are you going to have to sue them in THEIR state? I would be sure to get at least some set pay. Good luck.
It's certainly a risk. Thanks for all you guys' input. What triggered me to ask for this arrangement is often I'm faced with a 2-minute fix for the client, whether it's talking to a rep, or mostly, figuring out where we are with something and who's responsible for next step/fix/communication. It's like eating, but instead of three meals, you get a half a fishstick every 90 minutes. It's more of a concentration smasher than an actual set of work. So if I got more invested, I'd be able to make more of a "job" out of it, more pro-active than re-active. I either need to get more invested or get out.