What is a normal solar commission? Also, profit-sharing?

[atkelly]

Hi everyone,

I am part of small solar development that focuses mostly on commercial projects, but some residential as well. I do their project management and engineering for them, and am the central workhorse of their company. We are located in the Bay Area of Northern California.

They offered me a base wage of 48k + profit sharing. Also, I would make a percentage of any sales I personally make.

This is my question: I have never been in this type of position before. I have a strong sales & solar/electrical engineering background. I have no idea if what I am receiving in profit sharing is considered fair. Also, I don't know what is fair to expect from sales percentages when you are making a base wage like I am.

Also, are sales percentages usually based off the total price charged to the customer? Or just from the markup? Each of our projects has the base price, the contingency, and the markup... not sure which one to base the percentage off of.

And finally, they are offering me a particular $/W-DC from any projects that come through, regardless if I sold it. I'm not sure what is standard or fair. I wonder how these numbers would change from residential to commercial sales?

Thank you for reading. I feel like I'm very blind in this situation, and don't want to get taken advantage of.

Kind Regards,
Andy

[cebury]

Salaries can vary widely for even different parts of the bay, City vs. East Bay, etc. You'll have to do the research plugging in your demographics. Just keep in mind residential solar is on its way down IMO, esp. once the Federal ITC completely expires. So you need to determine how strong the company is, or likely will be, in the commercial industrial. If you need longterm stability, I'd reconsider unless they have string nonresidential sales. If you're young and mobile, you can take risks, If they are offering large profit sharing and commission it may be they cannot afford to hire sales otherwis;, sometimes that's a sign of motivational salary structure, other times it means if sales slump beyond your control, everyone suffers. I don't have personal access to high quality salary stats by region/industry anymore, otherwise that'd help greatly.

[J.P.M.]

I'm curious. Aside from the OP's possible naivety, any responses/comments from vendors or installers ?

[solar pete]

Ok, I can only comment on what I know from the OZ industry. Good sales people who can do preliminary consult/design/quote/close deal, would be on anywhere from 40K to 70K as a base retainer and 10% on the profit margin of the job. Sometimes you need to get 1 or 2 sales per week before the 10% commish comes in, different business's can set up what ever deal they like, the good one's will get a bigger retainer, the newbies have to take what they get until they prove themselves. We have the best solar sales guy in SA and he is on better than described and a company ute, but he sells a lot a solar