Service Teams in General – What and Why?
Service teams are teams of people who work together to provide one or more miscellaneous services for people, with each person having separate roles. These roles commonly include Sales Reps, which deal with the clients directly. The “specialists” – the people using their skills to provide clients with products – will often have no or little interaction directly with the user themselves, except to ask questions regarding their product.
Let’s stop here though. I’m not intending this post for people who are experienced and already know all of this, I’m writing this for users who are trying to get into business, work, etc., or just show off their skills.
So why do people even get into service teams, and why do they exist? Often clients want a centralized place to get products but they can’t be bothered to find individual people. Service teams give them a way to do that easily. Furthermore, people will want to apply for service teams because they might lack work, want to be seen, etc. – which service teams provide.
This is all fine and dandy on paper – I mean, it’s a win/win for everyone, right? Well, yes, but not quite. In practice, service teams are quite a bit more complicated than that. Some teams will have financial managers, which manages the fund – but not often. Most of them have owners, which both take a cut of the specialists’ money for each commission – just like Sales Reps – and also manage the funds – income, outgoing and payments, etc. You might think that this is fine, but actually practices like this require a lot of trust and payments.
“Pros” of service teams:
“Cons” of service teams:
I’m not saying service teams are bad – they just do not suit everyone. By all means if you just need the attention, go ahead and join a team. But it may not do you well.
Another point I would like to cover is:
The concept of service teams is awesome on paper. But in practice, it’s not efficient. Ultimately, it’s up to you (as, I assume, a person looking for work), to decide whether the pros outweigh the cons.
However, if you are an owner of a successful service team, this concept can be a very profitable thing.
Service teams are teams of people who work together to provide one or more miscellaneous services for people, with each person having separate roles. These roles commonly include Sales Reps, which deal with the clients directly. The “specialists” – the people using their skills to provide clients with products – will often have no or little interaction directly with the user themselves, except to ask questions regarding their product.
Let’s stop here though. I’m not intending this post for people who are experienced and already know all of this, I’m writing this for users who are trying to get into business, work, etc., or just show off their skills.
So why do people even get into service teams, and why do they exist? Often clients want a centralized place to get products but they can’t be bothered to find individual people. Service teams give them a way to do that easily. Furthermore, people will want to apply for service teams because they might lack work, want to be seen, etc. – which service teams provide.
This is all fine and dandy on paper – I mean, it’s a win/win for everyone, right? Well, yes, but not quite. In practice, service teams are quite a bit more complicated than that. Some teams will have financial managers, which manages the fund – but not often. Most of them have owners, which both take a cut of the specialists’ money for each commission – just like Sales Reps – and also manage the funds – income, outgoing and payments, etc. You might think that this is fine, but actually practices like this require a lot of trust and payments.
“Pros” of service teams:
1. Get seen more easily! This is easily the most prominent plus side to becoming part of a service team, and it is a very tempting prospect to a lot of people who need work or want to be seen. This is what service teams depend on to get their teams bigger.
2. Centralised place for purchases for clients! Clients won’t have to keep skipping round to other specialists, they can just go to a service team to get it sorted out.
3. Dealing with scams is no longer “your problem”. As the owners are paid, they have to deal with chargebacks and scams – sometimes the specialist might take the hit, but that’s highly unlikely.
“Cons” of service teams:
1. When it comes to spam and advertising, a lot of service teams are just plain annoying. When you see the same message spammed on each thread requesting a service, with different service teams posting their own messages, it’s just repetitive. I know this isn’t much of a point, but it’s definitely worth a mention.
2. You’re open to being scammed by the owner (links into my next point too). The specialist’s owner may not be entirely trustworthy and that may translate into a scam. This scam could be in the form of lack of payment, or underpayment, or even inconsistent payment.
3. You’re open to not being paid when you want and when you need, as well as on the specialist’s own terms. The owner decides everything with the commissions, and so the specialist’s payments may not be consistent. Thus it is entirely out of the specialist’s control.
4. You no longer get 100% control over what commissions you get when clients contact you or the service team. You may be declined to do a commission by the team, someone else may claim it or a randomizer may not pick you – that’s a massive money loss.
5. Advertisement is no longer up to the specialist, only the sales reps, who the specialist barely even knows.
I’m not saying service teams are bad – they just do not suit everyone. By all means if you just need the attention, go ahead and join a team. But it may not do you well.
Another point I would like to cover is:
· Say you take a commission, gotten from the service team – but your rate is 90% or even 85% of the commission. This commission is massive and you say you need to charge $800. 10-15% goes to the sales rep and the owner. You’ve lost that $80 - $120, so you’ll only receive $680 - $720 out of your possible $800.
· If this goes on for a lot of time, you could rack up maybe $10k in commissions if you’re exceptionally lucky, but you’ll only receive $8,500 - $9,000. That’s a huge loss, especially if you have other things to pay for.
The concept of service teams is awesome on paper. But in practice, it’s not efficient. Ultimately, it’s up to you (as, I assume, a person looking for work), to decide whether the pros outweigh the cons.
However, if you are an owner of a successful service team, this concept can be a very profitable thing.
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