Private Brief

Track 2 · Ade personal

Selling for someone else — on your terms, not theirs

You're right that the Cutlers-shaped role suits you better than it suits Henry. You're wrong about which version of it to go for. The employed version pays less than you need. The version that works is the one where you're a commercial agent, not a sales executive — you carry two or three principals at once, you're paid on outcome, and the customer base you build has legal value to you.

Built 2 August 2026 · Private, not indexed · Sources listed at the foot

01The honest read

Two different jobs are hiding behind the same idea. Separate them before you do anything.

The employed version is a downgrade for you

Cutlers advertised roughly £27,500, and we already established that as self-employed it's worth about £22,000–£24,000 as a proper job once holiday, pension, sick pay and notice are priced in. That's a reasonable first proper sales job for a 21-year-old. It is not a number that solves anything in your house — the target is +£50k/yr, and it would eat 40 hours a week that DoctoriumGP and the six Money Plan lines currently need.

So: do not chase advertised sales-executive vacancies at small dealers as the main play. They're in section 09 as a fallback and as market intelligence, not as the strategy.

The agency version is a genuinely good fit

What you actually described — "I could sell your stuff for you at a price" — has a name and a legal structure: you'd be a commercial agent. Self-employed, carrying one or several principals' product lines, paid commission on what you bring in, working your own hours from wherever you like.

Why it fits you specifically:

  • You can carry three or four principals at once. A salaried sales exec can carry one. That's the entire arbitrage — you're not competing on hours, you're competing on breadth.
  • Your background is genuinely commercial, not retail. 30 years running transport operations, 150+ vehicles across five depots, Group Ops Director, TM CPC since 1994, then founded and ran PHW Services to £3M. You have bought from these dealers. You know what the buyer on the other side of the desk is worried about, because for three decades you were him.
  • It's compatible with the existing work. Mornings stay with DoctoriumGP. Agency work is judged on results, not attendance.
  • The downside is capped. A dealer saying no costs you a phone call. It doesn't cost you a resignation.

The thing you're underrating

You said you'd sell more caravans than Henry. Probably true on the conversation. But a dealer principal doesn't buy conversation, he buys a track record in his product — and in caravans and cars you haven't got one, while Henry now has two years of it. In commercial vehicles, trailers, plant and anything an O-licence holder buys you've got thirty years of it. That's not a small difference, it's the whole difference between a cold pitch that gets a meeting and one that gets a polite no. Pick the sector where you're not bluffing. Section 04.

02The legal edge nobody in the showroom knows about

This is the single most valuable thing on this page, and almost no small dealer principal has heard of it.

The Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations 1993

If you are self-employed, with continuing authority to negotiate the sale of goods on behalf of a principal, you are a commercial agent under these Regulations — and a set of rights attaches automatically, whether or not anybody writes them into a contract. The headline ones:

  • Compensation or indemnity on termination. When the principal ends the arrangement, you are entitled to a payment. Unless the contract explicitly says "indemnity", the default is compensation — which is valued as what your agency was worth to a hypothetical buyer at the point they killed it.
  • Commission after termination on transactions mainly attributable to your efforts during the agency, and on repeat orders from customers you introduced.
  • Minimum notice periods, rising with length of service.
  • These are mandatory. A principal cannot contract out of them to your disadvantage.

Read that again in commercial terms: the customer base you build has capital value to you, not just to the dealer. That is the opposite of the employed model, where you build them a book and walk away with nothing.

Three caveats — get these wrong and it doesn't apply

  • Goods only, not services. Selling trailers, caravans, plant, vans — goods, covered. Selling finance, insurance or a service contract on its own — not covered. Structure the agency around the metal.
  • "Continuing authority" means an ongoing arrangement, not a one-off introduction. A single "find me a buyer for this digger" finder's fee isn't an agency.
  • The Regulations are under active review. The Government consulted on deregulating them under its Smarter Regulation programme. Check where that's landed before you rely on the compensation right as a selling point — the day-one commercial logic stands either way.

How to use it — and how not to

Don't open a cold call by telling a family dealer about statutory compensation rights. You'll sound like a claim waiting to happen and the call ends there.

Do know it, so that when you get to a written agreement you know what you're signing, you don't accept an "indemnity" clause without pricing it, and you understand that walking away from a principal after two years is not walking away with nothing. Take proper advice before signing anything — this page is orientation, not legal advice.

03What it actually pays

Two completely different commission bases, and confusing them is how agents end up working for nothing.

ModelCommission basePublished benchmarkWhere it applies
Manufacturer / supplier agency % of net sales value 8–16% of net sales for independent reps; high teens for niche capital equipment; 5–10% where the principal carries the marketing cost You represent a maker or importer into a territory. Highest rates, longest lead times.
Dealer / retail agency % of gross profit per unit US RV benchmark ≈ 20% of net profit per unit; retail vehicle trade generally works on a share of the deal's gross, not the ticket price You sell someone else's stock off their forecourt. The dealer will never pay you a % of a £30k van.

Worked example — illustrative only, not a quote

A UK caravan buyer documented a dealer buying at £14,500 and retailing at £19,650 inc VAT — a margin of roughly £4,300 on the unit. Apply the 20%-of-profit benchmark and the agent's cut is around £860 a unit.

~£860
per unit, illustrative
£20,600
at 2 units / month
£44,700
at 1 unit / week
£89,400
at 2 units / week

These are arithmetic, not forecasts. One forum-documented deal is not an industry margin, the 20% figure is a US RV benchmark not a UK one, and no dealer has quoted you anything. The number that matters is the one the principal writes down, and getting it in writing is the whole negotiation. Use this table to know when an offer is insulting, not to plan a household budget.

The three things to nail in any commission conversation

  • Base: percentage of what, exactly? "Gross profit" needs defining — before or after the pack, prep, warranty, transport and finance clawback? This is where dealers quietly take it back.
  • Trigger: paid on order, on delivery, or on the customer's cleared funds? Push for delivery. Accept cleared funds. Never accept "once we've had the finance payout and reconciled the month".
  • Territory and exclusivity: if a customer you introduced walks back in twelve months later and buys from the showroom, do you get paid? Under the Regulations you may well be entitled to. Write it down anyway.

04What to sell — ranked for you specifically

Ranked on one criterion: where does your actual history mean you're not bluffing?

1

Commercial vehicles, trailers and plant

Tippers, curtainsiders, plant trailers, telehandlers, mini diggers, groundcare kit. Buyers are operators, farmers, contractors and O-licence holders — the exact people you spent thirty years being.

Your edge: TM CPC 1994, 150+ vehicle fleet across five depots, Group Ops Director. You can talk plating, maintenance intervals, O-licence undertakings and whole-life cost. A 24-year-old sales exec cannot. This is where you're the strongest person in the room, not the newest.

2

Horseboxes and leisure trailers

Ifor Williams and equivalent — the Cutlers category. Lower ticket, higher volume, heavily relationship-driven, and the dealer network is almost entirely small independents.

Your edge: towing knowledge you already own, plus family equine and farm connections. Weakness: smaller unit margins, so volume has to carry it.

3

Caravans and motorhomes

Biggest tickets, most established independent dealers within 30 minutes of Hatton, strongest local density of any category on this list.

Your edge: geography and gravitas. Weakness: no track record in the product, and Henry is in this exact market. Going into Cutlers or Burton Caravan Centre behind him is a conflict you don't need. Treat caravans as the second sector you add, not the first, and stay off his patch.

4

High-ticket B2C — hot tubs, garden rooms, boats

Easiest agencies in the country to win, because these firms take almost anyone on commission-only.

Which is precisely the problem. Easy to win means low value and high churn, and none of your thirty years counts for anything. Skip unless the first three all fail.

05The proposition — what you're actually selling them

You are not asking for a job. You're offering to convert one of their fixed costs into a variable one.

The one-sentence version

"I'll bring you business you haven't got, and you only pay me out of the margin on business that closes. If I bring you nothing, I cost you nothing."

That's the whole pitch. Everything else is detail. A small dealer's biggest constraint is that a salesperson costs £25–30k plus employer NI and pension before they sell anything, and the risk of hiring one who doesn't work out is what stops them growing. You are that risk removed.

The three things that make you not just another commission-only chancer

  • You bought this kit for thirty years. Say the numbers: 150+ vehicles, five depots, TM CPC since 1994, founded and ran a £3M business. You're not learning their customer — you were their customer.
  • You're bringing net-new demand, not sitting on their forecourt. Critical distinction. You are not there to take walk-ins their existing staff would have closed anyway — that's channel conflict and it's the reason most of these approaches get refused. You're there to work outbound: businesses, fleets, farms, contractors, repeat buyers who've gone quiet. Say this explicitly and early.
  • You run a proper prospecting system. This is where AI genuinely helps — but pitch the outcome, not the tooling. A dealer principal does not want to hear about your AI. He wants to hear: "I build the list, I work it, and nothing I quote goes cold without a follow-up, because I've got a system that won't let it." That is true, it's what your setup actually does, and it lands. The moment you say "leveraging AI" you sound like every other cold caller he blocked this year.

The ask — keep it small

Don't ask for an agency agreement on the first call. Ask for a 90-day trial on one product line, on a defined commission, with no exclusivity either way. It costs them nothing to say yes to, and it gets you inside where you can prove the number. Formalise the agency after the first two deals land, when you have leverage.

06The email and the phone call

Amber text is a placeholder — fill it in before sending. Never send one of these with a blank in it.

Cold email — commercial vehicles / plant / trailers
Subject: Bringing you business you haven't got — no cost unless it closes

Dear [first name],

I'm local to you — Hatton, just off the A50 — and I've spent thirty years on the buying side of your business. I ran transport operations at Group Ops Director level, 150-plus vehicles across five depots, CPC since 1994, and then founded and ran my own business through to around £3M turnover.

I'm now working as a self-employed sales agent, and I'd like to sell for you.

The offer is simple. I work outbound only — operators, farms, contractors, fleets, and past customers who've gone quiet. I don't touch your forecourt and I don't take enquiries your own people would have closed anyway. You pay me a share of the margin on what I close, and nothing at all if I close nothing.

What I'd suggest is ninety days on one product line, a commission we agree in advance, and no exclusivity either way. If it doesn't work you've lost nothing but a coffee.

Could I have twenty minutes with you in the next fortnight? I'll come to you.

Kind regards,
Ade Whetton
[mobile] · ade.whetton@phwltd.com
Cold email — caravans / motorhomes / leisure
Subject: A salesman who costs you nothing until he's sold something

Dear [first name],

I live in Hatton, about [X] minutes from you, and I've been in and around vehicles, towing and transport my whole working life — thirty years running transport operations, the last stretch running my own business.

I'm setting up as a self-employed sales agent and I'd like to work for you on commission.

I'm not asking for a job or a desk. I'd work outbound: past customers who bought three or four years ago and are due to change, local businesses, clubs and groups, and the enquiries that came in, got quoted and then went quiet. You'd pay me a share of the profit on what I actually close, and nothing otherwise.

Ninety days, one product line, a number we agree up front, no exclusivity. If it earns you nothing it costs you nothing.

Would you give me twenty minutes? I'll come to the site, whenever suits.

Kind regards,
Ade Whetton
[mobile] · ade.whetton@phwltd.com
Phone script — getting past the desk and into the pitch
To whoever answers:
"Morning — could I speak to [principal's name]? It's Ade Whetton."

(If asked what it's about — do NOT say sales.)
"It's about a commercial arrangement, he'll know what it's regarding once I've had thirty seconds with him. When's he usually about?"

To the principal — the opener:
"Thanks for taking the call, I'll be quick. I'm local, Hatton. I spent thirty years on the buying side of your trade — ran transport operations, 150-odd vehicles, five depots, then my own business. I'm working now as a self-employed sales agent and I want to sell for you.

The reason I'm ringing rather than emailing is that the offer only takes one sentence: I work outbound, I don't touch your forecourt, and you only pay me out of the margin on what I close. If I bring you nothing I cost you nothing."

Then stop talking. Let him fill the silence. Whatever he says next tells you which objection in section 07 you're dealing with.

The close — always the same:
"Give me twenty minutes on site. I'll come to you. Is next week or the one after better?"

Sequencing

Phone first, email second. These are family firms of five to thirty people where the principal is on site and answers his own phone. An email into info@ dies. A call at 8:30am on a Tuesday gets him before the day starts. Email is the follow-up that confirms what you said, not the opener.

Walk-in beats both for the four or five closest to Hatton. Turn up mid-week, mid-morning, ask for the owner by name, and if he's not there get his name and mobile and ring the next day.

07The five objections you will get

"Why would I give away my margin?"
"You're not giving away margin on your business — you're sharing margin on business that doesn't exist yet. Every deal I bring is one that wasn't coming. And if none come, you've paid me nothing. The only way this costs you money is if it makes you money."
"I've already got salespeople."
"Good — and I'm not going near them. They work what comes in. I work what doesn't. Ring-fence it however you like: I only get paid on a customer I've registered with you in advance and that nobody in your team has spoken to. If there's any doubt on a deal, it's yours." — Concede the grey ones instantly. It costs you the odd deal and buys you the whole arrangement.
"You've never sold a [caravan / trailer / digger] in your life."
Don't dodge it — you can't. "No. I've bought them, for thirty years, at fleet level. I know what the man on the other side of your desk is actually worried about, because for three decades I was him. And you're not risking anything on finding out whether I can — that's the whole point of commission-only." Never claim a product track record you haven't got. These trades are small and it will be checked.
"What about finance — can you sell that?"
"No, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Finance is FCA-regulated and that stays entirely with you — I introduce the customer, your authorised people handle every word of the finance conversation." This is the right answer and it's also the honest one. See section 11 — after the motor finance redress scheme this is the most sensitive subject in the trade, and a cold caller who's relaxed about it is a cold caller who gets shown the door.
"How do I know you won't take my customers to a rival?"
"Put it in writing. I'm happy with a non-compete on your product line for as long as we're working together, and a defined territory. What I won't sign is anything that stops me carrying a non-competing line — a trailer agency doesn't conflict with your groundcare business." Carrying multiple non-competing principals is the model. Protect that, concede everything else.

08The target list

Real, named, independent, and within reach. Verify addresses and get the principal's name before you call — the name is the difference between a conversation and a brush-off.

Don Amott Leisure Kingdom

Call first
Eggington Road, Hilton, Derby DE65 5FJ · caravans, motorhomes, campervans · founded 1963, 48-acre site

Why them, first, above everything: they are in Hilton. You are in Hatton. Same DE65 postcode district, a few minutes apart. Sixty-plus years, family name over the door, big enough to have real margin and small enough that the principal makes the decision himself. "I'm your neighbour and I want to sell for you" is an opener nobody else on this list can use.

Tier 1Walk inLocal hook

Blackwood Leisure Vehicles

Call
Mount Pleasant Road, Castle Gresley, Swadlincote · family-run · motorhomes, caravans, sales + workshop

Small, family, workshop-led, roughly 20 minutes away. Exactly the scale where one extra salesperson is unaffordable as a hire and attractive as a commission. Angle: they are service-heavy — their existing customer database is full of people who bought years ago and have never been asked whether they're ready to change.

Tier 1Database angle

Motorhome Depot — Anslow

Call
Anslow Business Park, Main Road, Anslow, Burton-upon-Trent · husband-and-wife franchise · brokerage model

Read the model before you ring. Motorhome Depot are brokers — they sell other people's vehicles on commission. That's either your best fit on this list or your worst: they already understand and operate the exact structure you're proposing, but they may want you as a franchisee (with a fee) rather than an agent. Establish which on the call. Never pay to become a salesman.

Check the modelFranchise fee risk

HFB Trailers

Call — high fit
Leek, Staffordshire · Ifor Williams main dealer · also agricultural trailers and equipment

Ifor Williams main dealer with an agricultural side — the crossover of your towing knowledge and your farm/operator background. Further out (roughly an hour) but this is the sector where you're strongest.

Sector fit~1hr

Robert Lee Plant Ltd

Call — high fit
Family-run since 1992 · covers Staffordshire, Shropshire, Cheshire and Derbyshire · authorised AVANT dealer, also Bobcat, GEHL, Messersi

Probably the single best sector fit on this page. Family firm, multi-county territory already, dealing into agriculture, construction, groundcare, equine, recycling and landscaping. A territory that wide almost always has geography nobody is actively working — that's your opening line: "which part of your patch gets the least attention?"

Tier 1Territory gap

Bob Holmes

Call
High Offley, Staffordshire/Shropshire border · independent family firm · used excavators, screeners, telehandlers, dozers · supplies UK-wide

Sells nationally from one site — which means the sales function is a phone and a website, not a forecourt. The most remote-friendly target on the list, and the one where "I'll work outbound from home" is the most natural fit.

Remote-friendlyNational reach

Comvex Plant & Machinery Sales

Call
Covers Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Rutland · mini/midi diggers and excavators

Seven counties. Same question as Robert Lee: nobody covers seven counties properly. Find the weak one.

Tier 2Territory gap

Russells

Call
Agricultural equipment and groundcare specialists · multi-site

Groundcare and agricultural machinery — councils, contractors, estates, golf clubs, schools. A B2B buying cycle you can read, and a customer type you've sold to before in a different guise.

Tier 2

T & A Trailers

Email
West Midlands · family-run since the early 1960s · large stock of new and used Ifor Williams

Sixty years old, family-run, big stock holding. Further than you'd want to drive weekly, so pitch it as outbound-only from home with occasional site days.

Tier 2

Glossop Caravans

Email
Derbyshire (north) · family-run, 50+ years · sells across the UK

Wrong end of the county — over an hour — but they sell nationally, so the pitch is remote outbound. Lower priority than the local four.

Tier 3

Burton Caravan Centre

Hold
Burton-upon-Trent · used touring caravans, sales and valuations

Hold this one. It's close and it's the right size — but it sits squarely in Henry's market and his employment situation is live. Don't create a family problem for a Tier 3 target. Revisit once his position is settled.

Conflict — Henry

Cutlers themselves

Obvious thought, bad idea, at least for now. If Henry gets the job, you approaching his employer as a competing salesman is a mess for him and makes you both look small. If he doesn't get it, it's a warmer call — but wait until that's resolved. Nothing on this list is worth going in over the top of your son.

How to extend the list yourself

The pattern is: independent, family-named, 5–30 staff, multi-county territory, high-ticket goods, principal on site. Find more of them by working the manufacturer distributor networks rather than job boards — Ifor Williams alone has around 57 UK main distributors, and every one is an independent business with a territory. Same trick for JCB, Kubota, Avant, Bobcat, Swift, Coachman, Knaus. Pull the dealer locator, filter to within an hour, and you have fifty named targets in an afternoon. Ask and I'll build that list properly.

09Where the advertised roles actually are

The fallback track. Worth knowing, worth setting alerts on, not worth building the plan around.

Live at the time of writing

  • Grantham Caravans, Retford branch — sales person, main dealer for Swift, Coachman, Moto-Trek, Knaus, Weinsberg and Mclouis Fusion. Roughly an hour from Hatton.
  • Field-based Area Sales Manager roles in the holiday-home and leisure sector — territory ownership, on the road, relationship selling. This is the advertised category that most resembles what you actually want.
  • Park Holidays UK — recruiting into their sales processing team; largest caravan operator in the south of England, so geography is against you unless it's remote.

Listings go stale within days. If a link is dead the employer and the route in are still right — ring the site directly.

Standing searches to set up

On Indeed, Totaljobs, Jooble and DWP Find a Job — email alerts, not browsing:

  • "area sales manager" + trailers / plant / commercial vehicle / groundcare
  • "self employed sales agent" + midlands
  • "commission only" + capital equipment / machinery
  • "business development" + transport / haulage / fleet — where your CPC is a differentiator rather than a curiosity

The agent networks — useful, with a health warning

  • AgentBase — UK sales agent recruitment specialist, membership around 10,000 self-employed commission-only agents. The most established.
  • Sales Agents UK — browse opportunities and contact principals directly. Free registration.
  • CommissionCrowd — matches principals with commission-only agents; has live capital-equipment and asset-finance opportunities with OTEs quoted around £60k.
  • Sales Agents Plus — background reading on how the agent/principal relationship works. Worth an hour before your first call.

The warning: a large share of what's listed on these platforms is low-quality churn — telecoms, energy switching, merchant services — where "uncapped commission" means an unpaid job. Register on all four, set alerts, but your good outcomes will come from the cold approaches in section 08, not from a listing. Published figures put top commission-only field agents in strong sectors at £50–80k; that's the top of the distribution, not the middle.

10Week one

All of this counts toward the 25-actions-a-week rule. Calls, emails and meetings booked all count. Building this page didn't.

Before you
ring anyone
Get the principal's name for the eight Tier 1 and 2 targets — Companies House, the About page, LinkedIn, or just ring and ask the receptionist who owns the business. Thirty minutes' work that doubles the hit rate. Also decide your commission floor so you're not deciding it live on a call.
Monday
Phone Don Amott (neighbour angle) and Robert Lee Plant (best sector fit). 8:30am. Two calls, no more — take the learning from these before you burn the rest of the list.
Tuesday
Rewrite the opener based on what actually happened Monday. Then phone Blackwood Leisure, Bob Holmes and HFB Trailers. Follow-up email to everyone spoken to, same day, before 6pm.
Wednesday
Walk in at Don Amott and Blackwood if either call didn't reach the principal. Mid-morning. Ask for him by name.
Thursday
Phone Comvex, Russells, Motorhome Depot Anslow. Email T&A Trailers and Glossop. Register on all four agent networks and set the alerts.
Friday
Chase every unanswered call once. Log the week in the action ledger. Target: 25+ logged actions. Then decide whether the sector ranking in section 04 survived contact with reality.

The only number that matters after week one

Not how many calls you made — how many principals agreed to a meeting. Ten calls into small family dealers with a genuinely no-risk offer should produce two or three. If it produces none, the problem is the opener, not the market, and we rewrite it. If it produces four, the problem is that you'll be tempted to say yes to all of them — take two, prove the numbers, then add.

11What kills this

Five things. Two are fatal if you ignore them.

1 · The FCA problem — read this before your first call

Anything touching consumer finance is regulated, and the trade is more nervous about it right now than at any point in twenty years. In March 2026 the FCA finalised its Motor Finance Consumer Redress Scheme (PS26/3), covering undisclosed broker commission on agreements from April 2007 to November 2024, with firms required to issue final responses by 31 July 2026 and an industry-wide redress figure in the billions.

Practically: dealers hold limited permission credit broking authorisation, or act as appointed representatives / introducer appointed representatives of an authorised firm. You cannot discuss, recommend or arrange finance unless you are registered under someone's authorisation. That registration is the principal's job and it takes time.

The line to take: "I introduce the customer, your authorised people handle the finance." Say it before you're asked. In this climate, a self-employed salesman who volunteers the boundary reads as competent; one who's vague about it reads as a liability.

2 · Commission-only means £0 for the first two to three months

High-ticket sales cycles are long. First conversation to cleared funds on a trailer might be weeks; on a machine it's months. Whatever the commission structure, plan on nothing landing until roughly month three, and budget on that basis given the household position. This is the strongest argument for carrying two or three principals from the start rather than one — but also the reason not to give up on the Money Plan lines while this builds.

3 · Channel conflict is the most common refusal

Most dealers' first thought is "he'll take deals my staff would have closed anyway." Kill it in the first thirty seconds with the registered-prospect rule in section 07, and concede every grey deal without argument.

4 · Self-assessment and the January bill

The same trap flagged in Henry's brief applies to you with bigger numbers. Self-employed tax isn't taken as you go, and the first payment includes a payment on account for the year ahead. Put roughly £1 in every £4 aside from the first commission and don't touch it.

5 · The time it actually takes

This is not passive. Two principals worked properly is a genuine 15–20 hours a week of calling, quoting and following up. That has to come from somewhere, and the honest question is whether it comes out of the six Money Plan lines. The case for doing it anyway: it's the only line on the table that pays cash for effort within 90 days without needing Gemma's sign-off, a restoration, or a regulator. The case against is that it's another half-finished thing. Two principals, worked properly, or don't start.