How do you compensate your wedding cordinator? Do you pay a flat rate, commission, etc?

Also, if you have someone selling your cakes, picking up commercial accounts how do you pay that?

I am debating to go on a commission vs. base pay.

Wanted to get some ideas.

Thanks

what are you calling a wedding coordinator? Is this a wedding planner who sends brides to you? Is this your in-house person who takes the wedding cake order? I'm sorry to be so dense ... it's been a long day.

If you're talking about a classic wedding planner, I don't pay anyone anything. I also have a small shop so I'm the main marketer and all the employees take orders just on their regular time. I usually take the wedding order myself, but not always.

why would you pay the wedding planner?

Wedding planner? Why should I compensate a wedding planner?

hmmm....is OP talking about how she gives a kickback to a wedding planner for referring cakes to her? I thought this might have some merit (a few weeks back) but was quickly b*tchslapped back into reality by some of favorite CCers......lol.

Like the others, I'm not sure whether you mean a kickback to an independent wedding planner or an employee whose job it is to sell your cakes, so this might not be relevant....

I don't own a business, but I used to BE that employee who sold wedding cakes -- at the time, we did about 700 a year, so I worked with a LOT of brides. I was paid hourly, but I think a commission-based pay system might have been more beneficial for my employer. While I tried to be true to my boss, I also tried to be true to the customers and sell them what they needed/wanted, not what I wanted to sell them. However, if my pay had been determined by how much they spent, I could have talked a lot of brides into a lot of things (fondant instead of buttercream, gumpaste flowers instead of fresh, etc.).

Sorry, let me re-phrase that.

I have a lady that meets with the brides and sells them their cake. She does exclusively deal with them.

She will generally meet with the bride initially and do the final appointment. But the bride can call the shop and ask any of my empolyees questions also.

I am trying to determine what is fair to her and I.

I want to steer away from commission in a sense due to the fact I don't want to become known as the "pushy" bakery.

I thought about giving a flat fee for the appointment, and if the book depending on the amount the fee will increase.

An average wedding cake in my shop/area goes for approx $400-$500, but can be much more on occassions.

I do approx. 300 weddings a year.

She also cold calls commercial accounts, deli's, restaurants, etc.....

It sounds like she does the wedding consultations, in addition to other stuff, for you. Is that what you were referring to?

Yes, she does the wedding consulting

So another words she does your sales for you. How about a small flat rate, and then commision?

Mike

so, would you do commission on profit?

Any more feedback would be great.

Thanks

I would think she would be an employee of yours....But, that's me.

Paul

i have done commision sales. ask her who is she really working for the bride or you

I think if you want her to be an employee in charge of bringing in new business, you should cut her in. The more money she brings you, the more she makes. It gives her incentive. You could also sit and discuss thing you don't want (i.e. if they say no to something, don't keep pushing, etc.)

I realize she is an employee and you could pay her as such but an employee directly in charge of new accounts would be someone I would want to keep happy. You get what you pay for, you know? Yes, I'm sure an hourly employee would work fine but I bet you end up making more money and with a happier employee if you kick down some comission to her.

When you say profit, do you mean you would pay her a % of the sales? So if she sells a cake for $2000 then you would base the commision on that? Because if you were talking about basing the comission on the profit (after cost) I think that gets quite tricky. Better to pick a modest number and base it on the cake selling price.

I totally missed that..... I took his comment to mean that he felt she was simply an hourly/salaried employee therefore 'compensation' wasn't necessary.

Did I misunderstand, lol?

Okay my quick input on the op. I have a different kind of business but we do pay/get commissions for sales.

If you sell 300 wedding cakes a year at the average price of 500 and you pay this girl a 10% com. She gets $50 per cake for a salery of $15000 per year. Is this a full time job for this person because if so I'd say this isn't enough money as she has to pay her own taxes etc out of this.

The benefits of commission over paying salery/hourly is you don't have to pay SS, workers comp, etc on this person. And while you take SS out of their pay you also pay into it on top of this. These are things to keep in mind when hiring someone. Plus if she works on commission as an indipendant contractor then she is responsible to pay taxes and etc. You just give her the 1099. Hth

My catering manager, who books 90% of our cakes ( I book the more complicated ones) plus types up the orders and coordinates all of the deliveries makes $25,000 per year.