Most trades companies hire their first salesperson the same way. The owner is buried in quotes, hears a friend talk about a “closer,” posts a job at $45,000 base plus commission, and hires the person who interviewed best. Nine months later the person is gone, the pipeline is empty, and the owner is back to quoting at 9 p.m.

The alternative is a fractional sales manager. Someone who runs your sales function part time on a retainer plus commission, builds the process, and either does the selling or teaches your people to do it. It is not the right answer for everyone. But most owners have never priced the two options side by side, and the numbers change the decision.

This article does the math, shows a comparison table, and tells you when each option makes sense. It also covers what to look for so you do not get burned either way.

What a W-2 salesperson actually costs

The base salary is the smallest part of the bill. Here is a realistic first-year cost for a full-time outside salesperson at a trades company doing $1.5 million to $4 million a year.

  • Base salary: $45,000 to $60,000. Go lower and you get people who cannot sell. Go higher and you are paying for a résumé you cannot verify.
  • Commission: 5 to 10 percent of sold revenue is common. On $600,000 in first-year sales at 8 percent, that is $48,000.
  • Payroll taxes and benefits: add 15 to 25 percent on top of wages. Call it $15,000.
  • Vehicle: a wrapped truck or a vehicle allowance. $8,000 to $15,000 a year with fuel and insurance.
  • Phone, laptop, CRM seat, business cards, shirts: $3,000 to $5,000.
  • Ramp time: the first 90 days produce close to nothing. You pay full base while they learn your services, your pricing, and your market.
  • Your time: hiring, training, riding along, reviewing quotes. Ten hours a week for the first three months is normal. Nobody counts this, and it is the most expensive line.

Add it up and a mid-performing salesperson costs $120,000 to $150,000 in year one. That is fine if they sell $800,000 at healthy margins. It is a disaster if they sell $250,000 and leave in month ten.

The turnover problem

In our experience, the first sales hire at a trades company fails more often than it works. Not because the person is bad. Because there was no process, no lead flow, no training, and no manager. You hired a driver and did not build the road.

When they leave, you eat the ramp cost again with the next person. Two failed hires in a row is a $100,000 lesson, and we see it constantly.

What a fractional sales manager costs

A fractional sales manager is an experienced sales leader who works with several companies at once. You get a slice of their week on a retainer, plus a commission or performance bonus on what closes. The structure varies, but a typical arrangement looks like this.

  • Retainer: $2,500 to $6,000 a month depending on scope. Lower if they are coaching your people. Higher if they are running outreach and closing themselves.
  • Commission: 5 to 10 percent on new business they source or close, sometimes with a declining rate after year one.
  • No payroll taxes, no benefits, no truck, no laptop.
  • Ramp time: two to four weeks. They have sold trades services before, so they only need to learn your pricing and your territory.

Annual cost lands between $40,000 and $90,000 before commission. Commission is variable, which means it scales with what you actually sell.

The catch is that you get part of a person, not all of one. If your business needs 40 hours a week of face time with customers, a fractional lead can build the machine but cannot be the machine.

Side by side comparison

W-2 salesperson Fractional sales manager
Year-one cost, mid performer $120,000 to $150,000 $40,000 to $90,000 plus commission
Ramp to first closed deals 60 to 120 days 14 to 30 days
Hours per week on your business 40 5 to 15
Builds your process Rarely Usually the main job
Manages other sellers No Yes
Handles inbound quotes all day Yes No
Risk if it fails Full salary, truck, lost pipeline Retainer, usually month to month
Best fit Steady lead flow, needs a full-time closer No process yet, or a specific channel to open

When hiring a W-2 salesperson makes sense

Hire a full-time salesperson when these are true.

  1. You already have more inbound leads than you can quote. A salesperson pays for themselves fast when the phone is ringing and quotes are sitting unanswered.
  2. You have a sales process written down. Pipeline stages, a follow-up cadence, pricing rules, and a CRM that is actually used. If you do not, read how to build a sales process for a field service company first.
  3. Someone can manage them. Sellers without a manager drift. If that manager is you, budget the time honestly.
  4. The role is mostly in person. Residential roofing and HVAC replacements close in the kitchen. That is a full-time seat.

When a fractional sales manager makes sense

Go fractional when these are true.

  1. You are the only salesperson and you want out of that seat. A fractional lead can build the process, hire and train the first rep, and hand you a machine that runs without them.
  2. You want to open a new channel. Multifamily and commercial accounts are a good example. Getting into property management is a long, relationship-heavy process, and a fractional lead who has done it before will shorten it by a year. See how to get into property management accounts.
  3. You cannot afford a bad hire. A $4,000 retainer you can cancel is a different risk than a $55,000 salary with a truck attached.
  4. You have one or two salespeople who are underperforming and nobody is coaching them.

A worked example

A pressure washing company doing $1.2 million wants to add commercial and multifamily work. The owner considered a $50,000 base rep.

The rep option: $50,000 base, $12,000 in taxes and benefits, $10,000 for a vehicle, $4,000 in gear, plus commission. Roughly $76,000 fixed before a single deal. Realistically, months one through three produce nothing while the rep learns what a property manager cares about.

The fractional option: $4,000 a month retainer with 8 percent commission on new accounts. $48,000 a year fixed. Week one, the fractional lead builds a target list of 150 properties. Week three, outreach is running. Month three, the first two annual contracts are signed.

By month twelve, the fractional lead has landed $400,000 in recurring contracts and has trained the owner’s ops manager to handle renewals. Total cost: $48,000 plus $32,000 commission, so $80,000. And the owner now has a process to hand to a full-time rep, who will ramp in weeks instead of months.

That is not a knock on full-time reps. It is a sequencing argument. Build the road, then hire the driver.

What to look for in a salesperson

  • They have sold a service with a similar sales cycle. Selling cars is not selling HVAC maintenance plans.
  • They can explain how they follow up. Ask them to walk you through a quote that went quiet. If the answer is “I check in,” pass.
  • They are comfortable with a CRM. Ask what they used and what they logged.
  • They ask about your lead flow before they ask about commission. The reverse is a red flag.
  • References from a previous manager, not a friend.

What to look for in a fractional sales manager

  • They have sold your kind of work to your kind of customer. A B2B software sales lead will not know what an apartment regional manager wants from a vendor.
  • They will show you a process, not a pitch. Ask for the pipeline stages they would set up in your CRM.
  • Clear scope in writing. Hours per week, what they own, what you own, how commission is calculated, and how you cancel.
  • They have an exit plan for themselves. A good fractional lead wants to make themselves unnecessary by hiring and training your internal person.
  • They can talk about what does not work. Anyone who promises a number in the first conversation is guessing.

The hybrid most owners end up with

The most common good outcome we see is not either or. It is a fractional lead for six to twelve months who builds the process, opens a channel, and then hires and trains the W-2 rep. The retainer drops or ends, the rep keeps the pipeline moving, and the owner is finally out of the sales seat.

If you want to think about the total budget, how much a trades company should spend on sales walks through the percentages.

Where Intrepid fits

Intrepid runs fractional sales for field service companies, mostly in dryer vent, pressure washing, gutters, and similar trades that sell into property management. We teach, train, or run the sales function depending on what you need, and we build the process so you own it when we are gone. Read more on our sales page or book a call if you want to talk through your numbers.