Been a while since I've posted, I've been extreeeeeemely busy with life. Also, I moved into a new apartment a few months ago and it's still hell trying to get everything organized.
Long story short - I love my job, but I'm getting sick of the nature of it. Let me explain.
This is my second stint working for this company. I started in January of 2005, and was promoted to manager my second month. I stayed with the company until November of that year. I was approached by a reputable company to work in insurance sales.
I left this company, and went to work for a few months and fell flat on my face. Nobody wanted to speak with a 20 year old about life insurance. After 3 months, I decided to get back into a sales environment.
Worked for a mattress company that had completely unrealistic goals, had a high turnover rate, etc. I did very well at it, but the amount of lying and dishonesty that we had to go through with customers to make the sale (call it haggling all you want, but as far as I'm concerned, if I'm trying to get you to spend the full amount when it's perfectly fine to sell it with the discount you keep demanding, it's dishonest) caused me to be let go of after 3 months. I just didn't have that "killer" instinct they were looking for.
I came back to work at the first company and they welcomed me back. I worked hard, got my old spot as manager back, and we were doing pretty damned well.
Corporate, in all their infinite wisdom, decided to introduce a new ranking/ratings system. Before, we were only rated on certain incentives that we sold along with the furniture.
The new system has us ranked on everything. Tables, lamps, chairs, rugs, financing, etc. The sales trick is to present the entire living room at one low cost and hope the customers go for it.
Here's the problem. My showroom is very small, and only writes up about 10-20% of what the others do. Our ranking in the new system always in the bottom 25% out of the 200 national stores.
In larger showrooms, that write up more volume, you have a better chance to have a good sale wipe out a bad one in the ratings because there's so much business being written up. Say you write up a complete living room to one out of every 20 people. That's fine - when you make a dozen sales a day. Our store is lucky if we have 20 sales a month. The ratings and evaluations go month to month, so in the ratings, we'll be 15%,19%,12%, 291% (that was the week we had a big sale and no bad ones to wipe it out), etc. while all the other stores float at about 150%
Does the company care about the average? No. They even started making it so the cutoff is 125%. If you get below that for two consecutive months, you're seriously considered for termination.
I've been well below that benchmark for months now. I fear my pay will get cut, I'll be demoted, or at the worst, let go. If I was a new associate they would have let me go already.
The conflict comes from me being the best salesman in the southern half of the state, as far as product knowledge, policy knowledge, and sales pitch. I'm THE textbook example of HOW the company wants their associates to be, except I'm not even coming close to reaching the new goals. That's not good for the morale of the company, no sir.
I have the same feeling I did when I left this company a year and a half ago of general unrest. It's not been fun for me, but now that I'm a few years older and more mature, I know what it is.
I'm getting sick of sales in general.
I'm 22, I've been working retail and sales in one form or another since I was 18, and three of those years have been working commissioned sales. I want to go back to school full time in the fall, and I cannot work this job and take an intensive course at the same time.
It also means I would need to find some sort of job in the next few months that would lend itself to being a student. And I know what I want to do. I want to try my hand (heh) at being a casino dealer.
The schooling for dealers lasts about 2 1/2 months, so I would have to take it very, very soon if I wanted to get it done by the time the new semester of school comes around.
But I'm conflicted. We're short staffed in my district as it is and my bosses have ALWAYS bent over backwards to help me if I needed anything. They have been very good to me, it's just corporate and truth be told, I'm not even too miffed about that. It's just a lack of desire in sales anymore and it's detrimental to both myself and my company.
How have any of you gotten through a situation like this? One where you enjoy the people and job in general but just get burned out on the type of it? I want to bring this up with my boss, because I would have to attend dealer school while still working here. I don't feel comfortable at ALL asking him to bend over backwards for scheduling so I can take this class, knowing in the back of my mind that I'm taking it so I can leave the company...
Long story short - I love my job, but I'm getting sick of the nature of it. Let me explain.
This is my second stint working for this company. I started in January of 2005, and was promoted to manager my second month. I stayed with the company until November of that year. I was approached by a reputable company to work in insurance sales.
I left this company, and went to work for a few months and fell flat on my face. Nobody wanted to speak with a 20 year old about life insurance. After 3 months, I decided to get back into a sales environment.
Worked for a mattress company that had completely unrealistic goals, had a high turnover rate, etc. I did very well at it, but the amount of lying and dishonesty that we had to go through with customers to make the sale (call it haggling all you want, but as far as I'm concerned, if I'm trying to get you to spend the full amount when it's perfectly fine to sell it with the discount you keep demanding, it's dishonest) caused me to be let go of after 3 months. I just didn't have that "killer" instinct they were looking for.
I came back to work at the first company and they welcomed me back. I worked hard, got my old spot as manager back, and we were doing pretty damned well.
Corporate, in all their infinite wisdom, decided to introduce a new ranking/ratings system. Before, we were only rated on certain incentives that we sold along with the furniture.
The new system has us ranked on everything. Tables, lamps, chairs, rugs, financing, etc. The sales trick is to present the entire living room at one low cost and hope the customers go for it.
Here's the problem. My showroom is very small, and only writes up about 10-20% of what the others do. Our ranking in the new system always in the bottom 25% out of the 200 national stores.
In larger showrooms, that write up more volume, you have a better chance to have a good sale wipe out a bad one in the ratings because there's so much business being written up. Say you write up a complete living room to one out of every 20 people. That's fine - when you make a dozen sales a day. Our store is lucky if we have 20 sales a month. The ratings and evaluations go month to month, so in the ratings, we'll be 15%,19%,12%, 291% (that was the week we had a big sale and no bad ones to wipe it out), etc. while all the other stores float at about 150%
Does the company care about the average? No. They even started making it so the cutoff is 125%. If you get below that for two consecutive months, you're seriously considered for termination.
I've been well below that benchmark for months now. I fear my pay will get cut, I'll be demoted, or at the worst, let go. If I was a new associate they would have let me go already.
The conflict comes from me being the best salesman in the southern half of the state, as far as product knowledge, policy knowledge, and sales pitch. I'm THE textbook example of HOW the company wants their associates to be, except I'm not even coming close to reaching the new goals. That's not good for the morale of the company, no sir.
I have the same feeling I did when I left this company a year and a half ago of general unrest. It's not been fun for me, but now that I'm a few years older and more mature, I know what it is.
I'm getting sick of sales in general.
I'm 22, I've been working retail and sales in one form or another since I was 18, and three of those years have been working commissioned sales. I want to go back to school full time in the fall, and I cannot work this job and take an intensive course at the same time.
It also means I would need to find some sort of job in the next few months that would lend itself to being a student. And I know what I want to do. I want to try my hand (heh) at being a casino dealer.
The schooling for dealers lasts about 2 1/2 months, so I would have to take it very, very soon if I wanted to get it done by the time the new semester of school comes around.
But I'm conflicted. We're short staffed in my district as it is and my bosses have ALWAYS bent over backwards to help me if I needed anything. They have been very good to me, it's just corporate and truth be told, I'm not even too miffed about that. It's just a lack of desire in sales anymore and it's detrimental to both myself and my company.
How have any of you gotten through a situation like this? One where you enjoy the people and job in general but just get burned out on the type of it? I want to bring this up with my boss, because I would have to attend dealer school while still working here. I don't feel comfortable at ALL asking him to bend over backwards for scheduling so I can take this class, knowing in the back of my mind that I'm taking it so I can leave the company...
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