How much commission would you pay to someone getting your business work?

HappySad

I am making referrals and getting work for local business that offer a great service but need help in letting people know about them.

I now want to charge for this but need to know what is the going rate. Business are accounts, builders, plumbers, graphic designers. Should I charge a flat fee or charge according to cost of job or type of job.

It is basically offering sales with some marketing service.

Please offer contructive advice. If I got you a £500 or £20,000 job how much should or is best to charge.

paulwf

You may need more than one approach as a builder may do a one off job but usually an accountant has an ongoing relationship with a client year on year. OTOH a flat rate fixed fee would keep things simple, plus how would you know how much a contract was for?

How much time are you spending to get each lead? If you're spending a full day getting a lead then you need to be charging £50+ to make it viable.

Premier_2

How long's a piece of string?

You really need to research your competitors and see what they are charging for a similar service.
It may also depend on how much work you have to do to get the business, whether it adds any value to the supplier (e.g. do you negotiate the price on their behalf?) and most importantly, what the supplier may be prepared to pay.

If you are simply giving referrals to people who approach you, then a value of 1% or even less of TOV may be appropriate, but will the supplier be prepared to pay this?

A lot of business is generated between companies on a mutual goodwill basis. i.e. I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine.
By you referring work free of charge to those who are better suited to supply, may hopefully result in a reciprocal agreement should someone first approach that other company.

At the other end, we've paid someone 50% before, but they spent a lot of time securing the business on our behalf and negotiated the price with the customer. (Actually we told the agent how much we wanted for the work, and then they negotiated the price the customer would pay ... good on them for doubling our price and still winning the contract)