I currently pay $10/lead and $1,000 if I buy it paid at closing. I'm starting to rethink this however to $10/lead and $500 if I buy or $0/lead and $1,000 if I buy. I'm not sure yet.
Remember to ask them what's their motivation? Is it the $10, the $1,000, or the chance to learn the business?
I forgot to answer your other questions. I have a finder package modeled after Kris Kirschner's package. It has general instructions, approved areas of town to search, areas to stay away from, 10 property condition sheets with line-by-line instructions, pictures of houses to get and avoid. That coupled with the advertorial is pretty much all they need.
Remind them that this is a business and they need to run their own business like a business which means they need to have their own motivation to get up and drive around, get the packet together and get it to you. I send the checks the same day or hand it to them if they drop it off.
I have them get exactly 10 the first time and I look through them. I still pay them but I let them know about unacceptable submissions and that I won't pay for them in the future. These usually include houses that are dirty but not junkers, in the war zones, obviously under rehab, etc.
I'm thinking of putting up a web site that they can use to verify a house hasn't been submitted already, run the addresses against the trustee sales list, track progress of the deal, etc.
I'm also writing a course to train my Bird Dogs and will probably make it available to others on how to find properties. It will include book, forms, web site access, audios, videos of searching, finding, documenting houses, and "street conversations" of talking to people on the street or at the door about homes for sale or distressed in the neighborhood, etc.
That will be followed up with a course on tracking down owners and doing their own title searches which is also a service we're going to farm out. I'm leaving the how to buy to the real experts (ala Ron Legrand, etc.). My philosophy is train them and they will come.
Good luck.
Kawika Ohumukini