Maximizing Income as a Tag-Team Consultant: Tips and Ideas for Success

[chefmeg]

I had a most interesting call today-a customer that I had spoke to previously about the opportunity said she came across my number after just having had a conversation with her friend last night about wanting to go to culinary school! Talk about Karma!
She is divorced and no longer getting child support (child is now 18) and needs the extra income PC can offer. So she asks me if she and the above mentioned friend can do shows together!
Here is what I told her:
Each of them would need to sign on as a consultant and work out a system as to who would do the work for what shows-this way, both get paid, both earn PC$.
OR
One signs on and the other "helps" at the show and they work out a system for payment and sharing of PC$

Since this site is a wealth of help, I want ya'll to give me ideas as to how this would best work. Do I need to call HO for any details that I haven't thought of or can I just proceed on which one of the above scenarios suits them?
I want this to succeed for my customer, so I want to be straight up with all aspects of this deal!
TIA!

 

[jenniferp417]

If they live close together, that might work. My mom and I tried it with Stampin' Up! - and granted, we did *not* work our business very hard - but we lived an hour apart and it simply didn't work well for us.I like the *idea* and now that I'm only 1/2 an hour from mom, I'd kinda like to try it with PC... but I've been leery of suggesting it, since SU! didn't work well for us.

 

[katie0128]

I would NOT even remotely suggest that it is o.k. for only one of them sign up! I would state that if they both want to represent PC, they BOTH need to be consultants. I'm sure there are more reasons, but the two that popped into my head immediately are liability and taxes. Even though I'm not positive, I'm pretty sure PC would have some disclaimer in our contracts prohibiting this and would probably terminate the consultant who was "job sharing" with a non-consultant.

If only one is a consultant the other one will have no liability insurance from PC should something happen at a show, booth, fair, etc. If something did happen, it would probably get really ugly deciding who is a fault, who needs to accept responsibility, etc.

And for tax purposes, once they each make $600, the income needs to be reported on tax returns. If only one is a consultant, then only that person would receive the 1099. The other person could, in theory, not report the income on her tax return since the money is earned "under the table". That would be considered fraud if the IRS or state government ever found out about it.

Like I said, I'm sure there are other technical reasons, but these are the two I immediately thought of. HTH.

 

[finley1991]

Well said Katie! I agree -- sign them both!

 

[dwyerkim]

I would encourage them both to sign... aside from the possible legal reasons, by having them both sign they both have all the tools for their own kitchen, both can work on incentives, both can do catalog shows with different audiences even if they do their cooking shows together. And that way, though I would keep this to myself, if one of them flakes out and the other is serious about it, they can keep it going.