Check your local laws. In the US as a base standard if you pay an individual over $600 in a year, you must provide them a 1099 (k?) form and have their w9 on file legally.

Why not approach from a different angle. Rather than passivley looking for work posting ads, look on sites such as upwork.com (US) where clients are activley looking for contractors like yourself and have already posted what they need for you to determine wether you could help them or not? This would produce better and faster results for you. The other key element there, is the business you are in is a commodity these days, so in order to get clients you need to provide outstanding customer service and be certain you can accomplish the job. good luck!

There are multiple different angles to answer this question. I will start with a few clarifying questions first. Who do you currently sell to? (industry, companies, individuals in those companies, etc) What is your current sales process? Where do you get traffic from? (digitally, phone, in person, etc) There are only 3 ways in increase revenues in a company via sales. Get more customers, get them to come back more often, or sell them more things. If you currently have maxed out your highest revenue channels, you would need to open a new channel, thus a new form of sales professional to step into that role. If you have not yet maxed it out, you would need someone with experience in maximizing that channel. This could mean hiring an industry leading sales person, or maybe a facebook ads expert or agency if that's your core means of sales. Since you have a broad question, I can't give you a definitive answer but this may help get your head pointed in the right direction. (quick note on the site, when you click purchase report, it takes you to a login screen. That presumes #1 that any user is already a member (at a min it should be a simple sign up as default not log in) and 2 that is a friction point in sales, the reality is you could capture an account on checkout for those folks that just want to buy a single report. make that as easy and as simple as possible and sales on the main page will increase.

First things first, I wouldn't rely on organic traffoc to a review blog for affiliate commission for your sole income, things come and go, so ideally you would need to build quite a few sites or a substantial business for it to be stable. However, to your question, An incredibly niched down site may have its advantages, but the winner above all will be the review site with the most useful information that has all the comparisons and information that searchers want. Just buying a focused domain and thinking type-in traffic from google will come, will not work any longer unless you can do it at scale. So if your passion really lies behind reviewing kitchen appliances (right!) I would build a site that is different than others and fills a gap in that area so it will be something that actually ranks and gets traffic... and in turn some amount of revenues.

Hi, even if you hired a sales executive you would need to give them training on your product so they could effectively sell it. And even then the person would ideally need to know the best way to sell it, as not all sales executives are good at building the sales process itself. The idea thing for you to do in my mind, is sell that yourself, or hire a sales consultant to help you build the process. You will pay more in the short term for a cinsultant, but the sales should make that money back. Once you are accutley aware of how to best get leads and covert them, you can hire sales staff and have them refine it. By that point you should have some income to be able to pay them Base+. It is likely you could get commission only sales folks, but in order to do that they need certainty that you at a minimum know how to sell your own product and they can spend the time working for you and making enough money doing so.