Things were looking good. I had made a sale. Not only had I made a sale, it came from a lead I generated with MY marketing plan. There was more to come. I felt sure of it. I felt I was also almost ready to start some conversions.
Then the plan changed. The owner of the company was not happy with the sales manager and decided to take a new tack. We could still do whatever we wanted… AFTER cold calling on 20 businesses a day. We were also required to attend morning sales meetings every morning.
Objective number one was to get the business owner to sit down on the spot and discuss his security needs. The alternative to objective 1 was to set an appointment for later. Again, at the very least, we were to collect business cards. We did as we were told. To encourage sales to businesses, a new deal was conceived by the owner. The commission was dropped to $50.
It would take 4 times the sales to make what I needed to be a living wage if I followed the new plan. Since my van was on its last legs, I truly couldn’t do all that around town driving, so I did what I thought was enough to qualify for my cold calling, then focused on more group meetings where I could work on the $200 commission sales. I thought my inventiveness would be appreciated. I was wrong.
2 days later, the owner blustered: “What are you doing? Just picking up a business card and leaving? You’re supposed to be SALESMEN. You have to SELL them.” The sales meetings changed. They were more like intimidation meetings.
It seemed to me we were being given conflicting instructions. On one hand we were being told to go in and leave a flyer and take a business card that would be handed over to our telemarketing department (that didn’t exist.)
On the other hand we were told to start using trickery, such as going in and posing as a customer to the business, whether we ever had any intention of buying, or even had an interest in what they were selling. We were supposed to take the time to converse and get them to “like us” before going into our pitch. We were supposed to do this 20 times per day. When I asked if we should go in with flyers in hand, the owner said: “That’s up to you.” I said: “It just seems to me that if I go IN with a handful of flyers, I can’t very well pose as a customer.” At that point I was accused of being argumentative.
By the way, those 20 cold calls on businesses would be AFTER spending a good part of the morning in the intimidation meeting. The meetings went on ‘til at least 10:00, which didn’t put us on the road until 10:15 or so. Figuring drive time to our first stop, we had already burned through half the morning.
I continued my sales attempts. I figured one more seniors meeting and I could prove that I was onto something, and that I was developing a track record. With that said, I hoped I could be excused from the meetings to pursue my own marketing plan. I did not appreciate the meetings. They really didn’t do any good, AND I was on commission. I wasn’t being PAID to be there.
It was at this time that I made plans to resume my job search. I had hopes of being able to get something that would provide a regular income and do the alarm sales on a part time basis. I needed money badly, and the need would soon become even worse.
The next morning I awoke to a knock on the door. A passerby saw water running down the driveway. It was our hot water heater. It had sprung a leak. I turned off the water and did some immediate cleanup, then called my sales manager that I had a home emergency and wouldn’t be in. I spent the rest of the day removing the old water heater, cleaning up and drying out the mess, and researching senior groups online.
Because we were behind on the rent, the landlord refused to get us a water heater. I didn’t find that out until the next morning. I was STILL waiting for him to show up so I called my sales manager to let him know the situation. He was very understanding. It was shortly after that I was informed by the landlord that he wouldn’t replace the water heater until the rent was caught up. And shortly after that, I got a call from my sales manager. He was apologetic and said it wasn’t his decision, but it was his job to tell me I was being “let go” for not attending the sales meetings. He even agreed with me that the meetings weren’t helping and that requiring attendance when we weren’t being paid wasn’t right, but he had to think of HIS job and HIS family. I agreed that had to be his primary concern and he promised to give me a good reference, and to put him down on future applications rather than the company itself.
And so ended my venture into direct sales. I only made $200 in 3 months, but I learned a lot about sales, and did things I didn’t know I could do. Thus began my renewed quest.
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