The Gun Counter

Like most salesmen, part of our salesman's pay is based on commission - always happy to pay one, as it means I've made money.

However, even though he's listed as the sales contact in all our literature, website, etc, many of our customers decided to contact me, directly. Again, typical in small business, where the boss of one company talks to the boss of the other. (Even though I'm not usually the best guy to talk to about most things.) I also seem to have made a few sales on my own, just by talking to people.

So, I have a few problems:
A) What's the most polite means of handing a sale off to the salesman?
B) How do I deal w. his commission? I don't want to cheat him, but I don't want him to think that he can collect a commission on sales he's not producing. It hasn't come up too much before, but now I seem to have closed a couple larger contracts, and once those become active, I don't know what would be the best way to handle his commission.

Pay him a partial commission on servicing the contract? (EG, taking orders, etc)
Pay him the full commission, if so, how to I discourage him from relying on others to make his sales for him?

What Chris said. Just fiddle with the percents to make them work in your area, but the basic concept is how it worked everywhere I have ever been commissioned.

The most important part is to think it through FIRST then have a standard policy that is written and lived by.

Is there some unease about the performance of this salesman?
Has everything been fine until lately?