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I am a part-time programmer contractor and usually I do everything myself, including meeting clients, writing the proposal, programming, the whole 9 yards. I would like to hire someone to split the non-programming tasks so I can focus purely on programming (with project management).

How much should I give my new secretary as a percentage of a project's total cost? Usually my projects are pretty small from a few hundreds to the low thousands.

Their responsibilities will be mostly 2 parts: to acquire projects by doing marketing, and to meet clients when necessary.

EDIT: I was originally thinking 20%, too much/too little? Please let me know.

EDIT 2: I currently work by myself and do not hire anyone.

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3 Answers

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AH - nothing. Pay her market rate. Or hire someone on an hourly basis.

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The problem with my current situation is that it's not formal at all. I am just doing this on the side. I don't pull enough revenue to hire someone formally nor do I think there is enough work to do. – Yongke Bill Yu Dec 11 '11 at 22:41
Just use a per hour site like ODesk, that's worked well for small engagements for me. – David Dec 11 '11 at 22:46
Ok, ODesk is an outsourcing website, but I need someone who can physically go meet clients, and do marketing locally, I do not believe this is what I am looking for. – Yongke Bill Yu Dec 11 '11 at 23:08
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Secretaries do not meet clients at the clients place. – NetTecture Dec 12 '11 at 11:46
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Think of this from the employee's point of view. The standard model for most employees is they get paid a wage to do a job. You're in essence talking about giving them 20% of your revenue, this leaves you with scalability issues if you ever grow.

I would give them a fixed salary for a fixed number of hours, no profit sharing. Ultimately, if they don't bring in, say, x2, of the revenue they generate for you, you fire them.

OK, in between that there's some time span where you support them to enable them to achieve that, but I find it's best not to lose track of that fundamental equation. Profit sharing clouds that calculation.

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The problem with my current situation is that it's not formal at all. I am just doing this on the side. I don't pull enough revenue to hire someone formally nor do I think there is enough work to do. Let's not worry about future growth. Let's say it's only profit-sharing of any project she personally pulls / helped out with and not all project I currently have. What do you think under these situation. – Yongke Bill Yu Dec 11 '11 at 22:43
SO, they wont commi their time. Well - what you get then? – NetTecture Dec 12 '11 at 11:46
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20% sounds like a lot for someone in a non-creative non-technical role. But it makes sense if it is the only compensation they receive. Personally, I would prefer to pay such a person a fixed rate based on the duration of work performed.

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What if they also do marketing and generate lead? – Yongke Bill Yu Dec 11 '11 at 23:44
20% still sounds like a lot for someone in a non-creative non-technical role. How many hours will the secretary/marketer put into each project, and how many hours will you put in? How hard is it to qualify for the position of secretary/marketer? What happens later when you need to hire a designer, technical support, system administration, a full-time tester, etc? At that point, then how much do you want to revenue-share with your secretary/marketer? – bneely Dec 12 '11 at 6:28

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