You're obviously talking about a multi-million dollar company if techs are slinging $100K jobs. JOBS - plural. That's almost unbelievable. My techs sell additional speakers, an extra remote, or the occassional security system with monitoriing - but NEVER $100,000 Plus projects.
Who will design and project manage the $100k job? How about collecting project draws and attending the contractors meetings? What about ordering all of the equipment and scheduling?

If the non-salesman is going to take care of all of this - I'd say that a "normal" commission rate of that particular company is in order. Otherwise, a nice referral bonus is probably more likely.
Also, commissions should be paid out once the final check is collected and customer has possession of equipment. In some cases where the jobs go months and months before finishing, commission percentages off the draws should be used. Of course, all of this is my opinion.

Rambling thoughts stream of consciousness:

I used to work for a multi million dollar public company as a salesperson.

Sales people got a small base pay/hourly and most of their pay was commission/spiff based. (total compensation was approximately 8% of retail sales gross dollars and margins were averaging about 40 points) Good salespeople at this company typically did not "leave money on the table". (most salespeople typically make 8 to 10% compensation (salary/commission) depending on the industry, plus benefits) The heavy commission balance was to ensure the constant push for sales.

Store managers, assistant managers and management were paid large salaries and quarterly bonuses based on various factors being met.

Installers were paid on salary plus overtime. At one point when there was an even bigger push for accessory sales by the company, Techs could earn a spiff if they found an "omission" by a salesperson and they pointed it out to the customer. (Typically it was a missing set of cables or maybe a surge protector for a sub-woofer or something. Or the customers existing gear that was unbeknown to the salesman, the tech could sell them on better cables for it) The spiff was a flat % based on the retail price.

If the client was starting to ask sales questions they would be referred back to the salesperson. This was to avoid conflicting "opinions" between the tech recommendation and the sales recommendation. "Mr tech, which sub-woofer is better the one I am getting or the XYZ bombastic" "They are both good, call your salesperson for more detailed info"

Some customers would indeed trust the "non selling" employee. Tech to customer "Where is your surge protector?" Client "my sales guy was telling me about that, do I really need one?" Tech "You absolutely do, you should get one""Call your sales guy and he will bring it over" On bigger sales the sales guy would buy the tech lunch or something.

The sales rule was to avoid conflicts before starting up with a new client "Have you been here before and who is your salesman?

We also had a referral system in place, I forget the exact details of it though.

Snakes salesman that "stole sales" when they were found out lost the sale. Not even a "split sale".

I have a hard time believing a tech closed a $100k sale without many long conversations, system design, proposal and all of that...

Commissions were only paid out when the sale or portion of the sale was taken/delivered/paid for by the customer. If their was a return within 30 days the return commission was deducted.

Suffice to say everyone made money and everyone was a happy camper!

@TimmyS, what was the average sales of one of your AV salesmen? I'm curious as to what you'd considered average.

I know there was a local woman who back in the hayday was doing 4M. You would have to have sales/system design support in order to reach those kind of numbers IMO.

@drewski300

The top 10 always wrote from $900k to $1.5M a year each. It would have been tough to write more because of manpower and time needed to facilitate/logistics and other issues etc. My store had 10 full time salespeople. Other stores had a "couple" to 10 as well.

Retail sales "small systems" "Popcorn""Over the counter" were $3k to $30K including Labor. These were the best sales because they were in and done in less than 2 weeks. Bigger Jobs with Crestron control, dedicated theaters, Shades etc that took months to complete were fewer and farther between but occasionally the $100k to $200K happened but usually was Work and seemingly never ending that would tie you up from making the "popcorn" sales.

The Sales guy met and greeted the client. Walked the home (if necessary with the project manager) designed the system, wrote the proposal, Presented the system and closed the sale. (not necessarily in that order though) Staged the goods for the project and occasionally built cabinets. Worked with the customer and project manager for scheduling the job. Followed up with customer, sent thank you's and gifts to the customer.

Did that answer your question? lol

I don't understand! JK Thanks

Should be paid on a sliding scale based upon margin of profitability.