[Craigslist Hack]

Do any of you guys have a vendor manager or a processor?

We have 23 crews now and are working in 6 states the way things are currently set up we have 2 processors that upload what the guys send in. I usually handle all the work for a couple companies and the little woman handles a couple of companies then the processors handle the rest. More and more often my people are calling me with things I feel that they should be handling for me. If I am going to be dealing with every little detail I don't need the overhead of employees. There are not enough hours in the day for me to handle it all and it is clear that I need to hire someone with experience. I want to bring in someone talented that understands our industry.

What do you guys think would be a sufficient yearly salary for such a person?

How would you go about finding such a person?

Would you hire someone away from one of your former clients?

 

[Craigslist Hack]

I spoke to a couple guys in the industry and they pay there top guy the go to guy $200 a day thats New York though

WOW! $200.00 a day for an office employee? I am thinking around 60K but who knows. That is why I asked!

That blows my mind. I can't afford that maybe when we get bigger? I know a few people that do it and have heard salaries ranging from $8.00 an hour to $75K per year.

I will be doing it all myself for 100k

 

[Craigslist Hack]

If you have employees then you should have their duties spelled out for them so you are not tied up handling ticky tack issues all day.
Yes, I have made offers to people working for others that I knew were trying to better themselves. Your not forcing them to leave their boss, you just giving them options. In some instances, the benefit package (read that insurance) will outweight the pay rate.

We are too small to get great benefit packages. We do what we can but it is far from great.

Every single employees jobs are clearly spelled out they simply don't do what they are supposed to do. For Example: I ask that every day start by calling the contractors and going over all open orders. When I quiz my people on what is going on I hear a litany of excuses and get very few answers. "he didn't pick up" "straight to voicemail" "I didn't call him yet" "I was going to do that as soon as I process some orders" If you fire them you have to start over. This is a tough position to train for so when you get even semi proficient help you hold onto them.

 

[Craigslist Hack]

Dobe if you are all bite then you better start chewing. I'm far from a task master; I am a macro manager. So, I lay out guidelines early on and politely ask once down the road if/when there becomes a problem. After that, I pick up the phone right after I come into the office and in front of the staffer that pixxed out another excuse, I chew the contractor out, whether he was at fault or not. It gets the point across. If things like that are important to you, then nip it. If what you have right now is the high water mark in quality, then you have to adjust and learn to live with it.
JMTCW.

I don't chew people out. I explain my expectations and if necessary reiterate. After a few weeks I will call them in for a review and discuss their personal strengths and weaknesses. If they are not on point after 6 months I terminate them. I need to add someone to micro manage I suppose because I am to busy for the minutia.

 

[Craigslist Hack]

There you go Hack. Looks like all your problems from 5 years ago are solved! :thumbsup:

LOL! Thankfully we no longer need that type of service! We aren't processing and we only take pics of the work we do!

 

[Craigslist Hack]

I guess that would really depend on what part of the country you're from. $55K here gets you way more than a billing expert - BTW, what is a billing expert? I have been billing national service companies for 10 years now, am I an expert?

At one time I had 6 people in my office and none of them were making 55k. This post takes me back to when I was foolheartedly thinking we could do it RIGHT! Every company had it wrong and we were going to use our model to kick butt and take names. It wasn't too long after that we changed the model, then we changed it again, then again and again and so forth. In the end we learned that too much of what dictated our future in the preservation industry was in the control of others. Others who were concerned with their paycheck not ours.

When i shut the office down and laid off the last girl I actually took her and found her a job at a company I had worked for in the past. She was there for a few years. We are far more profitable today and so much better off. I still have an occasional issue pop up from the old days but it's becoming more and more rare.

I much preer today's business model and enjoy the work we do.