Sub-agents and third-party solutions are going to be two things you will definitely going to have to deal with if you want to run your 
Bookie business properly.
Bookie Tips: Sub-Agents
Sub-agents are a big part of a Bookie business because at their best, they provide the main agent with most of his profits, but more commonly, they still provide agents with a steady stream of good regular income.
What does a Sub-Agent Do?
When you hire a sub-agent, it means that you are hiring, basically, a sales professional to help you sell your sports betting operation.
Collections: Another important task related to sub-agents is doing collections. They can collect money and pay winners for you.
Getting paid for lost bets can turn into a conflictive situation, but a good solution comes in the form a local sub-agent who can do collections for you and who can also establish a contact with your clients in order to cement the trust they have put on your wagering business.
Types of Sub-Agents
There are different ways in which you can perceive sub-agents. For example, you can see them as partners, direct employees or freelancers.
It really all depends on the kind of working relationship you have established with your sub-agents.
When your business have grown enough, it is likely that you will be working with different sub-agents from all over the country. When this happens, you will notice that it is best for you to deal with each agent as a separate entity.
This means that some sub-agents might become your partners because of the kind of good deals they are bringing to your door.
The better the deals, the greater the cut for sub-agents. This is a motivating factor that allows some top sub-agents to acquire the status of unofficial “business partners.”
Treating top sub-agents as royalty should be your policy if you want to avoid a confrontation that can lead to top sub-agents leaving you to start their own sports betting operation with the clients they’d obtained for you.
Others are going to be sort of your “direct employees” because they only work for you and do it for a commission. Since the volume of profits that they bring to your pockets is not considerably high, they can’t be ranked as partners.
Why Are Sub-Agents Necessary
When you work locally, you probably might not need the assistance of sub-agents, unless your local sports betting operation is considerably large.
On the other hand, when you promote your bookie Pay per Head Solutions over the internet, you are trying to sign up players from all corners of the country, which means that there is a significant possibility that you don’t know most of them.
This is the main reason why it is vital for you to count with a physical presence in an area where you have a considerable number of players.
Indeed, when people deal with a physical person, then tend to perceive a business as to be more trustworthy than when dealing with a virtual character.
How to Get in Touch with Sub-Agents
There are different ways in which you can get in touch with possible candidates for the position of sub-agents on your bookmaking services company.
One of them is to post local ads on websites related to sports or gambling from the area where you are interested in expanding your business at.
If you let a message on such sites about the possibility of making cash based on commissions, there are good possibilities that you will get more than one individual contacting you.
Chances are that you already know more than a few people who work in sales. Try to get in touch with as many of them as you can and see how they feel about gambling.
Do it in a casual way (remember, you really don’t want everybody to know that you are running a sports betting operation), and if they are open to the idea of the Bookie profession.
Then you can tell them that you know of someone that might have a nice profitable business available for the right individual, and if necessary, don’t disclose the information about you being the one running the wagering operation for as long as you need to.
The main thing that you need to remember when becoming a Bookie is that the more discreet you are at a local and personal level, the better you will do.
Screening People
There are chances that not all the people that respond to your request for individuals with sales experience whom are willing to work for a commission are going to be of the trustworthy kind. For this reason, you need to take some time to “recruit” your sub-agents.
What is vital, so you know that you are dealing with people that play fair, is not to reveal the nature of your business neither on your ads nor during the interview process.
You can, for example, rent an office in order to conduct the interviews, during which you can tell the suitors for the available position (s) that the job is related to sales and that it is paid based on commissions.
When you find someone that you like, then call that person for a second interview, where you can reveal that you are looking for a trustful sub-agent.
You can test out the abilities of your prospective employee by requesting that person to bring you a determined number of clients during a determined amount of time so you can confirm that you are actually dealing with someone that can really make things happen for you on a determined area of the country (or even overseas).
Agree on a Deal
Once you have agreed to work a given sub-agent, make sure that a deal is created between the two of you in order to avoid future misunderstandings concerning the kind of profits each of one you is going to enjoy individually.
For example, if you made a deal with a sub-agent about a given percentage to be paid to him during the course of the professional relationship, and after some time the sub-agent is demanding more, then you need to consider if dealing with agents whom can’t keep their word is worthy of your time.
If the agent that is demanding a better commission is one that is stagnating and has not been bringing you more clients, then maybe it is better to cut that sub-agent because chances are that he or she will continue to demand better commissions in the future, even when the volume of work is the same.
On the other hand, if you have a sub-agent that was a low-level member of your company but that is suddenly bringing you some good clients and continues to do so on a steady basis, then such person probably just realized that he or she has a talent for sales related to gambling and is just demanding some more money for their talent and professionalism.
These individuals you do want to keep on your side, so you if you think someone are going to bring you big players in the future, don’t let that person go.
All versus Shared Risk
When you work with sub-agents, you have two options: you either assume all the risk, or you share it with your sub-agents.
You Take All the Risk
When you assume all the financial risk yourself, you get most of the profits, except for:
- The cash that you have to pay your Price per Head Services provider on a weekly basis.
- The cash for third-party services (monthly basis).
- A commission to sub-agents.
- Paying Winners
Shared Risk
You can also opt for sharing the monetary risk with your sub-agents. This means that when players lose, both the Bookie and the sub-agent get a nice cut of the action.
The same thing goes the other way around: when players win, both the Bookie and the sub-agent shares the expenses.
You, as a Bookie, can also opt for working out a “percentage deal” which means that, for example, when one of your sub-agents brings you a new player, the sub-agent will get, let’s say, 20% of the losses or will have to pay 20% of the total winnings when the outcome of a game favors the player.
The latter is a great way to run things because you are both treating your sub-agents as your peers and they are also getting paid nicely while you are still getting the big cut of the profits.
Building your Network of Contacts
It is also good for your business to stay in touch with business associates and industry-like individuals because of many reasons, including the most important one: they can send clients your way!
The list of professionals can go from sub-agents, to those offering third-party solutions.
Third-Party Services
Apart from sub-agents, there are other third-parties that you will need to involve in your business if you want things to go as best as possible.
An Accountant
Needless to say, you also are going to need the assistance of a good accountant. Depending on the volume of your sports betting operation, you can actually decide if you need to hire an accountant full time or if that is a job that can be done from time to time.
Since this is a business that you want to run in a discreet way, you need to make sure that the person that you’re going to hire as your accountant is fine with your criteria about how a sports betting operation should be managed from a financial point of view.
Needless to say, your accountant must be someone that you can be relied upon 100%, all the time.
Monitoring: You can ask your accountant to update your Bookie Software information concerning your sub-agents in order to always have a fresh look of the current status of your business.
A Web Designer / Programmer / Blogger
If you wish to mount your own Bookie website in order to provide information online to prospective clients, you are definitely going to need to hire both a web designer and a programmer so they can give your site maintenance on a regular basis.
Remember that you, as a Bookie, will get a special website from the Price per Head company that you are doing business with, but such site is destined to be utilized only by your players in order to place bets.
The Bookie website we are referring to is one that you can create from scratch by yourself in order to do marketing for your betting operation. This of course once all the details have been worked out and the business is up and running.
If you wish your website to rank well on the SERPs, you need a team that is comprised of a web designer, a programmer and a blogger. All of them with knowledge of SEO or search engine optimization.
The first two to give your site a nice look and regular technical maintenance and the last one to provide you with fresh content for the search engines.
All the work aimed at improving your chances of being found in the web by your targeted audience.
A Personal Assistant
If you are planning on running a small Bookie operation with the help of Price per Head Services, chances are that you can run your business without the need of a personal assistant.
On the other hand, if you have the funds and want to go big right since day one, you will definitely are going to need a personal assistant that can help you with many things, which may or may not include handling things related to your personal life, such as getting messages for you, for example.
A personal assistant is great because you can pay this person to manage tasks such as being your direct contact with sub-agents, staying in touch with your freelancers and give you resumed data concerning your current accounting affairs (that is, if your account is not doing it already)
Overall, an assistant can become your right hand, helping you with many tasks at the same time and giving you a break from all of those obligations.
Check out soon for a brand new article from our Freelancing Guide to Becoming a Bookie! Or feel free to read our previous ones:
