The Company

The company is called Fourwood 2000 SL, and is a Spanish Sociedad Limitada (a limited company). We operate from home, and anyone is welcome to visit us here.

The Directors

We are a married couple, Helen and Pete, who came to Spain in 2000. We had planned to continue with our previous work, which was based on contract programming for blue chip clients in London, Edinburgh, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam, so bought a place with reasonable access to the airport. Then we decided that we liked it here so much, we would prefer to stay and work here

We have always worked for ourselves in some form or other, and at one point owned a small chain of computer stores in the UK

What we do

Helen deals mainly with real estate. She has established herself as someone who can be trusted, and sells property inland on the Costa del Sol. She likes to boast that she is friends with all the people who she has sold property to.

Pete continues with his computer programming. The last "proper job" that he had was with the Amsterdam stock exchange, creating parts of the software for the brokers screens. Sadly, there are none of this type of client (with this type of money!) in the area that he has chosen to live.

He then planned to write software for small companies locally, but decided that good information systems are not part of the local culture, so moved his focus onto the internet.

Currently, he has over 100 sites on the internet, both his own, and for clients. Some of these sites run to tens of thousands of pages. He has always been more interested in how clever a web site is, than in flashy, time-wasting graphics. The philosophy is, if you want to know what time the train is, you don't want to choose the colours, wait for revolving screens, and listen to some music - you just want the information.

How we do it

Helen gets all her clients via the internet. It was a more effective method than the newspapers when we started a few years ago, and remains the same today. Pete started by creating a website for Helen's properties, then expanded it. Currently, our real estate is contains properties from about 15 agencies, and is syndicated out to about 24 websites, none of them belonging to the estate agents.

The properties are all kept on Fourwood.com. When visitors arrive from other sites, such as Hot Costa, then the pages that they see look the same as the website that they started from, to try to make a seamless join between the original site. See the explanation and demonstrations at Fourwoods Property Feed page

So where do you come in?

Firstly, since all positions are work at home and hours to suit, we obviously have to pay on results. Therefore, all positions are commission only. It follows that the amount that you can earn, depends on the amount of time and effort you choose to put in. For the avoidance of doubt, we do not ask for any payment for joining or for any help that we provide you with, in fact, we do not ask for any financial investment from you at all, just your time. Your tax position on payments received will be completely in your own hands.

Also, although we are internet based, you are not required to have any special computer skills, other than being able to send and receive emails in the normal way, and browse the internet, or read web pages, in the normal way. All the technical side is done for you, and in the unlikely event that your clients have any technical questions, we will assist you fully.

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There are four main areas, Real Estate, Advertising, Internet Sales, and Business Manager

Real Estate

Each day, we get a number of enquiries about property for sale, usually asking about a specific property. We need the following :

• Property Searchers who can suggest alternative properties to the one the client has asked about. Clients usually are looking for something similar to the one that they ask about, so we can increase our chances of a sale by offering alternatives, from other agents. This involves finding properties, usually over the internet, which match in price, number of bedrooms, style, etc. This involves a certain amount of Client Liaison, as you will contact the prospective buyer, and check what they are looking for
• Backstops where the client has gone cold. Perhaps they couldn't find what they were looking for, as we were trying to do this all ourselves previously, and could have missed some. Possibly we passed the client to another agent, who didn't do anything, or possibly the other agent sold them something, and forgot to mention it to us

This would pay a high commission rate, but with less sales. You would need to be able to use the phone, and send emails, to a professional standard. Technical advice would be available at all times from us

As a guide (conditions apply) we would be paying 50% of the commission that we receive in commission to yourself. With many agents charging 5 to 7.5% commission, and prepared to split their commission 50/50, then we could receive, for a 250,000 Euro property, 9,375 Euros. We would only take out any commission which we need to pay to other sites (typically 250 Euros), then split this with you, giving you over 4,500 Euros in commission.

Should you working as a backstop, and find an agent has forgotten to pay us, there will be an ad-hoc payment made, probably 250 Euros (since you weren't actually involved in the sale itself).

Be aware that the commission will only be paid when we receive the money, but part of your work with the other agent will be building a relationship so that commissions are paid correctly. Those of you who have worked with real estate in Spain will know that it can be a nightmare, but we guarantee you that, if we get it, you will get it.

Advertising

We have a number of products which could be sold either by email (NOT spam), or by phone.

• We can provide internet advertising on our website Hot Costa (for Spain) in various different formats. Prices vary, and are not yet defined. Perhaps some sales person or business manager will give us some input here
• We can place internet advertising on a specific page - or the page for a specific town (example: Benalmadena) or specific category (example: Animals in Spain), the Blog page, or the (coming soon) news pages.
• We can provide interactive maps on our site, which show where the clients business is located. Currently, 5 Euros per month, minimum 3 months, so client pays 15E when he places the order, and 5E monthly, started in 2.5 months time.

• We can provide SMS Text Buttons which will allow the advertiser to receive texts on an ordinary mobile phone direct from site visitors. Obviously, the advertiser can contact his prospect before the prospect has had a chance to visit his competitors sites, WITHOUT sitting in front of a computer all day - they don't even need to have a computer! Prices vary depending on position in the website of the buttons, and what, if any, advertising is required. As a guide price, expect the client to pay 2.50 per received text, minumum first payment 25 Euros for setup and 10 texts. Top up in multiples of 5 Euros

We also have other sites, using the same pattern, for other countries. These are online, but have not been worked on yet. These countries are UK, France, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, and Italy.

Internet Sales

We have a number of products which could be sold either by email (NOT spam), or by phone. I would expect these items to be sold generally by email.

• SMS Text Buttons, as available from our own pages, see under advertising. A webmaster who carries advertisers can carry these on his site for his advertisers - he buys from us, you get your commission, and he the facility to his own clients. Cost of received SMS Text messages will be 1 Euro. Setup us 20 Euros, and includes 20 free texts. Top up in multiples of 5 Euros. Commission 30% to salesperson, 10% to business manager. Generally available worldwide
• Maps of the websites business location. Again, a webmaster can display maps of his clients locations. 50 Euros for first map, 5 Euros per map for others ordered at the same time. The page will be created and emailed to the client, so that the client can upload it to the clients website. Generally available worldwide
• Find other websites to take our property feeds. It takes one line of code, and there is no work to do, we talk to the clients, etc. The site owner will get 250 Euros for every sale made to a client sent from his site, whether the property purchased was shown on his site or not - the payment is for a successful introduction. You would get 50 Euros per sale, no commssion for a business manager. Commission is credited to your account on the day that the buyer signs at the notary. Conditions apply
• General programming and data services. Commission rate here is 10% of all invoices paid for salesperson, nothing for Business Manager.
• As stated in the Advertising section, we also have other sites, using the same system as Hot Costa, for other countries. These are online, but have not been worked on yet. We can also create a site for any other country quite easily. If you want to work a complete site, entering links, and articles, then we would be able to offer you, in most cases, 50% of all income via advertising, hotel bookings, etc. No programming experience is required, the sites are already online, but need a small amount of work from me, and a lot of work from someone else, to make them successful. The sites will already have some advertising on, so if you don't want to, you don't need to find any advertisers. No commission is payable to a business manager for this work.

On the home page of Hot Costa, you will see a rate of exchange chart, which is updated daily. We plan to make this available to other webmaster soon, although I suspect that there will be no charge for it.

Business Manager

This will be the most useful section, since a good business manager will be able to generate a great deal of business efficiently

A business manager will find people to work in the Advertising and Internet Sales areas, and will supervise, and oversee the work produced. A lower rate of commission will be paid on all sales in the two areas above. But earnings potential should be higher, since you only need a few people to start with. And you can also sell advertising or internet services yourself, should you wish to.

Your opinions and suggestions will be greatly valued, since you will have input from all those working for you

It is not envisaged that this point that there will be any need for a business manager in the real estate section, because that will be done from our office, however, you can also work in the real estate section yourself, should you choose to.

We are also looking for managers for our new Help Desk system. This will involve finding English speaking people to work from home, and answer enquiries. You would need to be able to organise the whole business side - set pricing, set staff payment levels and commission levels, find help desk staff, and either get salespeople, or sell the service yourself. Spanish speaking salespeople would be a plus. Commission rates to be fixed when pricing and payments are defined. Something very new here...

Commission Rates

As a basic guide, all sales will be 40% commission to the salesperson, and 10% to the business manager, except where specified above. Commission will be paid on ongoing sales - i.e., not just the first payment, but monthly payments and / or top-ups as well. Should a salesperson find someone to work for them, perhaps someone they have sold something to, then the salesperson will become Business Manager for that person, and earn 10% of their sales. You can only earn one commission (40% or 10%) on the same sale, you cannot earn both and take 50%, by becoming your own Business Manager, or by having a ghost email address, or having someone ghosting for you. You are very welcome, however, to sell some product, and also be a Business Manager, having people working for you.

Amounts of more than 100 Euros will be paid automatically by the 7th of each month, for payments received the previous month. Should commission be less than 100 Euros, it will be held over until it reaches 100 Euros

Payments will be made by PayPal. Payments using other methods, or of less than 100 Euros, will be made, less a deduction of 2.5% of the total paid plus charges made to us

You will not be collecting any money from clients, this will be done by PayPal, or by deposit into a Spanish bank.

Suggestions and Comments

At all times, you will be asked - expected, even - to make comments and suggestions, which will all be listened to. I have worked for too many different companies not to know that the guy at the pointed end knows how a business could be improved. And business improvements will mean more commission for you, and more income for me.

When you have read this page, please email me with your thoughts, by clicking the button below, or, if I have sent you an email, by clicking reply on the email. You are welcome to phone me at the number below, should you wish to.