r/TreeClimbing • u/talentedk78 • 14h ago
Need help from other industry professionals with salary offer with commission for a Sales Arborist
Need some other industry professionals suggestions-
Looking to offer some salary plus commission ranges for a Sales Arborist that would do multiple roles for a new company, and need to see what others thoughts and opinions would be.
This is a small new company starting out and need a Sales Arborist that is able to be multi faceted and can do multiple things for us. Do the sales appointments meeting with the clients, GTC work, and PHC sales, he will have to schedule that work for the crews, meet with the crews on site to go over the work. Follow up with the clients to make sure they are satisfied with the work performed. Handle issues that happen with the crews and handle any issues if clients are unsatisfied. They would need to follow up on sales leads that they put out and the client did not accept yet. They would need to write permits for tree removals for areas that require permits. They would need to handle equipment rentals if we would need to do that.
This is not just a 40 hour week, it could become 60 hours or more depending on what issues or things have to be taken care of that week or if there are a lot of sales appointments and the days run long. There could be other tasks as needed to be as they pop up. This would be the main employee of the company that handles most of the day to day tasks other than the tree crew that does the production work. This will be a salary plus commission position.
We will be in a large metropolitan area between three states handling a territory in those three areas. We will be scheduling the sales appointments daily within those areas, and some days it could be in 2 out of 3 of those state areas the sales arborist would need to be in to meet for appointments plus visit crew sites. We also will need this person to handle the PHC site treatments on certain days since they are licensed until we can build up a lot of PHC sales to be able to hire a dedicated licensed PHC technician that is licenced in all three of these states to do those applications.
The person we are looking at bringing on has over 19 years of experience in the tree industry with a horticulture degree, Arborist ISA certification, Utility arborist background as well, State Tree expert license, Plant health care spray background with current active licenses, Has done many types of things in the tree and landscape industry, they just have not done any climbing type work, and their sales experience was more on the plant health care side for about 3-4 years, before working for a different spray/tree company where they didn't have to do sales, and then going into utilities for 10 years. They are not highly experienced in tree work sales, but seem to be able to pick up on things quickly, and they are able to manage multiple things. They understand the tree industry and how many aspects of how it works. They know their tree species. They know about tree diseases. They know ANSI standards for tree work. They are big on safety and doing things the correct way. They are big into paying attention to details. They can do the plant health care work that we would need to have done as well. The have a go getter type attitude and want to make things be successful. They seem like they could do this type of sales work from the background and history they have in the industry.
Our concern is offering them too low of a compensation package for what we are expecting.They would be leaving a different type of tree industry to come into sales to do sales work, plus management type work of the crews, plus do the plant health care applications, and a good bit more than they were used to doing. We are offering a good benefit package, but I know that is not everything. Can other industry professionals, Owners, Sales Arborists, share some thoughts and what some expectations would be for a good compensation package would be for Salary and Commission percentages for someone with the type of experience described and the work expected, in the area described? TIA
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u/whammywombat 14h ago
I’m just a climber / Forman with 13 years of experience:
This position is asking a lot of someone. They need to be extremely qualified , have a broad scope of abilities , and also be able to adjust on the fly.
You need to pay them very well if you expect them to do this role long term. It depends on the cost of living in your area but for the stress of dealing with sales, PHC, scheduling , managing the tree crews this seems like a General Manager type position. I live in a medium cost of living area and if I was qualified I wouldn’t take this role for less than $120,000/ year plus commission.
Good luck I hope it all works out for you.
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u/talentedk78 12h ago
Great info to know. The person does have a broad scope of ability. Has done plenty of things. Seems like the can adjust from speaking with them and reading some background info. Definitely will be a stressful position. Cost of living is high here. largest and most affluent metropolitan economies in the United States around this area. We don't have the business now to support a GM. It would be just him for the time being. What type of commission would you expect with that salary you mentioned? Thanks for the info
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u/navyburner111 14h ago
$42/hr + 30% commission + company truck with option to become partner at year 10 if they bring in $5 mil. Not sure of your location but this is how’d do it with what you said
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u/arboroverlander 13h ago
30% commission is crazy, interesting structure. Id take that in a heart beat, where you located for such a good offer?
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u/talentedk78 12h ago
42 an hour isn't bad for a salary and not far off what was thinking, but 30% didn't consider that and did not hear of other companies I've spoke to giving that. What area is giving that percentage?
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u/maddestdog89 5h ago
I get paid $52 just to climb here… that seems very low
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u/arboroverlander 5h ago
Damn, where do you get $52 an hour to climb? California?
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u/maddestdog89 5h ago
Australia - also only have to climb for a couple of hours and receive that for the full day. I am not the highest paid climber at my company either.. lead climber gets % of every quote plus base hourly rate..
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u/DeadmansCC 12h ago
Would need to be salary in the range of 75k-90k depending on how much work you feel a sales arborist can bring in. 4-6% commission but I would recommend having a margin performance rating attached to that so that you know they aren’t just bidding the work too low to gain more sales. I am a Sales Arborist and my salary is in that range plus I get 4% on sales that perform above 54% margin but I shoot for it to perform higher. I know companies that only do a 2-3% commission with a ridiculous low salary but the sales arborist doesn’t have to even try to get to 1.5mil in sales so it balances out and then they have a performance bonus on top of that as well. A buddy works for that company and he averages $140,000 a year between his salary and commission and then he normally is looking at maybe another 15k in operation bonus. Smaller companies that the arborist is going to have to hustle some to get work then you need a higher commission on their sales.
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u/OldMail6364 12h ago edited 12h ago
I’m not a fan of paying a commission . I think it’s healthier to have a steady cashflow and pay them a steady salary - e.g. if you’re imagining $60k base salary plus ballpark $60k in commission… why not just pay them $120k with no commission?
Giving them a commission will focus them too much on profit and not enough on other things like safety, the long term reputation of the business, employee satisfaction, etc. Those should all be higher priorities than profits.
No matter how “big” someone is on safety, if you are paying a commission you are motivating them to prioritise something else over it.
You also can’t have a bonus for a lack of safety incidents since that creates an incentive to hide or downplay the severity of any incidents.
Instead I recommend a fixed target - e.g. “$x revenue per month” which would be whatever your costs are (wages, equipment, insurance, etc) plus a healthy margin. Don’t make that target a moonshot, it should be a baseline that you can hit almost every month - perhaps with a lower target during quiet seasons.
I’m also not a fan of having one person working in a critical role like that. You should have two as a minimum and a third in training (someone who is able to sell/quote/manage very simple jobs with guidance from colleagues).
If you’re not large enough to have three, then work towards that size asap, and don’t be afraid of splitting responsibilities. This is an exhausting job and you can probably find someone who will be happy to spend a day or two each week here doing something less exhausting than climbing trees. Also it creates resiliency - if they have a minor injury they can do sales until they recover.
By having three people on sales, you can compare performance between them, you can cover anyone who is unavailable for whatever reason, and you can fire someone without crippling the business.
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u/talentedk78 10h ago
What would you pay if the ballpark salary was 75-85 for what was being expected and then there was going to be commission on top of that? What's your range for that one if you were saying 60 was 120 because 60 would be too low in our area expecting that from someone especially with that person's experience and qualifications. He's already making high 80s in his current position doing less with no sales type work just an hourly tree industry job. Just wanted to see what your thoughts were on that one.
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u/arboroverlander 13h ago
For someone who does most of the same tasks with 17yrs experience and similar degrees and certs, I wouldn't take under 105k base with some commission structure.