The short answer
A floor works when each rep has enough volume to stay busy but not so much that dial times slip. Start by measuring what one rep can genuinely work in a day, size lead flow to that, and scale reps before scaling spend. Compensation should reward funded deals rather than submissions, and the metric that predicts revenue earliest is median time to first dial.
The most common scaling mistake in this business is buying more leads for the same reps. The lead line goes up, the dial times slip, the funded rate falls, and the conclusion drawn is that the leads got worse.
Start with what one rep can work
Not how many they can dial — how many they can work properly, meaning called within minutes, texted, emailed and followed up more than once. That number is smaller than most shops assume and it is the constraint everything else sizes against.
- Measure it before you scale. Give one rep a known daily volume for two weeks and watch what happens to median dial time.
- When dial time starts slipping, you have found the ceiling. That is the number, not the one you hoped for.
- Size lead flow to headcount rather than the reverse. Throttle delivery rather than accept a volume the floor cannot cover.
- Add the rep before the volume. A new rep with too few leads is bored; a floor with too many is slow, and slow is far more expensive.
Compensation
Pay on funded deals rather than submissions. Paying on submissions produces submissions, including the ones that were never going to fund, and it degrades your standing with funders as a side effect.
| Structure | What it produces |
|---|---|
| Commission on funded only | Focus on files that fund; the default for a reason |
| Base plus commission | Stability, and tolerance for longer cycles |
| Anything paid on submissions | Volume of submissions, including bad ones |
| Renewal commission | Attention on the book, which is usually under-worked |
The metrics worth watching
- Median time to first dial, weekly, per rep. It predicts revenue earlier than anything else on this list.
- Contact rate — how many leads reach a conversation at all. It separates lead quality from process problems.
- Submission-to-funded rate. If this is low, the problem is qualification or packaging, not acquisition.
- Cost per funded deal by lead source. The only figure worth comparing vendors on.
- Renewal rate on the existing book. The number most shops cannot produce at all.
Contact rate and submission-to-funded together tell you where a problem lives. Low contact with high funded means your leads or your speed. High contact with low funded means qualification or placement. Both low usually means the floor is buried.