Business Contracts Would this compensation structure qualify our salesmen as employees?

[fstep]

Basically to this point we have been paying our sales team on a pure commission structure. What we are considering doing now in the interest of acquiring higher level talent is offering x$ per completed appointments.

Example: $100 for every 25 completed and confirmed appointments per week (meaning they get to the clients location, complete say a 15 minute pitch, get us on the phone at the end and we confirm). If a salesmen does less than 25 appointments in a week they get nothing.

What we don't want to do is turn the salesmen into employees, right now they are basically affiliates, so I want to make sure this addition will not force us to do that.

 

[army judge]

Basically to this point we have been paying our sales team on a pure commission structure. What we are considering doing now in the interest of acquiring higher level talent is offering x$ per completed appointments.

Example: $100 for every 25 completed and confirmed appointments per week (meaning they get to the clients location, complete say a 15 minute pitch, get us on the phone at the end and we confirm). If a salesmen does less than 25 appointments in a week they get nothing.

What we don't want to do is turn the salesmen into employees, right now they are basically affiliates, so I want to make sure this addition will not force us to do that.

To ensure you make no missteps, why don't you seek a written legal opinion from your attorney?
You could then rely on his or her legal opinion if the labor or taxing authorities disagree with your action.
The last thing you want to do is create a tax and legal nightmare for your business.