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Some jobs have a steep learning curve initially, and then plateau. Later, good people-skills, self-discipline, organization and alacrity, become more important than deepening one's technical knowledge. These are the fields where older people can and do excel. As a buyer of lab equipment, I'd much rather deal with a 60-year-old technical sales representative, than a 30-year-old one. Specifically to your point, I've bought controllers for industrial motors before... AC rotary motors and DC linear motors... and I'd much rather deal with a seasoned rep like you, and a brand new fellow or gal, who's all-enthusiasm but little experience.
Other jobs have an intensity of technical immersion that's not only hard to sustain, but inimical to the "management track" of promotion. The people who manage Fermilab, CERN, Jet Propulsion Lab, Sandia and so forth, probably haven't written code or solved a differential equation in 20 years. Not only have they not kept up with the latest programming-languages, which is to say "skills", but their scientific knowledge has atrophied. By this I draw distinction between factual familiarity with the latest tools of the trade, and foundational knowledge. Upper management is generally inept in both.
So... if/when such upper-manager gets canned, in particular if there's a career-ending scandal, it becomes very hard to compete with fellow job-seekers. It is this sort of fall-from-grace, for which it's wise to prepare.
at one point i was offered a sales manager position ... i declined it ... the value is in having the customer base , not managing other salesman who then handle your accounts ... sales manager is a hard slot to find another job in ...sales is as easy as walking in the door of any competitor once you have a following
I've never fully understood this quote. Sure you ink the deals, but the product development team brings in the money. You can't sell vaporware for very long.
Perhaps it's industry specific, but I work in software development/SaaS and without a product sales people are essentially worthless.
I've never fully understood this quote. Sure you ink the deals, but the product development team brings in the money. You can't sell vaporware for very long.
Perhaps it's industry specific, but I work in software development/SaaS and without a product sales people are essentially worthless.
in sales oriented companies the sales force is considered the profit generators .. everyone else from engineering , purchasing , to a/r to the warehouse , are considered support and to some extent overhead and the cost of doing business ..
true none of us can function without the other but that is just the way business sees things when they are sales oriented. a salesman with a customer base can go to any competitor and have a job in a heart beat .. not so for any other job slot in our industry
in sales oriented companies the sales force is considered the profit generators .. everyone else from engineering , purchasing , to a/r to the warehouse , are considered support and to some extent overhead and the cost of doing business ..
true none of us can function without the other but that is just the way business sees things when they are sales oriented. a salesman with a customer base can go to any competitor and have a job in a heart beat .. not so for any other job slot in our industry
I guess it's a good thing I don't work in a sales oriented company. I work in a product oriented company that has a sales force. Like I said it seems like it's industry specific, but if you are selling piping and as a buyer I can go to any one of 20 pipe companies to get my product and the product would only be marginally different it makes sense that the relationship the sales team has with their clients would be critical. But if your differentiation is your SaaS product then it's a bit different. No one has a similar product to offer (at least not yet). But within our company I'd say it's pretty reflective of that. From what I can see it's R&D is most important, then sales, then support (like implementation, etc.). Of course sales wouldn't see it that way
To me it would be like saying the guys that sell ads for Google are the money makers of Google and not the engineers that developed adsense or the search engine that allowed Google to sell billions of dollars in ads. I don't think askJeebs sales force could is having much success selling ad space regardless of how good they are at their job.
there are so many aspects to the company i worked for ..
they are full line electrical supply wholesalers
they build and design custom control panels . (my specialty)
they sell motors and pumps
they are manufacturers and produce their own pump line
they sell and manufactur energy mgmt systems .
they own a plumbing contractor
they do lighting projects
they build and design switch gear
the list goes on and on , but sales and growth of the company all hinges on the sales force and sales is where the money is with quite a few sales guys earning multiple 6 figures in commissions . the sales force took the company from 6 million when i started to a 100 million dollar company today . i was doing about 4-5 million in business with my customer base when i pulled the plug , i started 23 years ago with zero . .
Last edited by mathjak107; 05-07-2019 at 07:25 AM..
Yeah, that's a diversified business that isn't even in need of much of an R&D team, I could see how relationships and sales means a lot more. Again, how would Apple be doing if they just continued to sell the original Iphone? or Dell if they still sold the Dell from 1998? In businesses with constantly evolving technology product design and R&D plays a bit of a bigger role. Either way if compensation is the key to how much a business values you it seems that these companies value R&D.
The two easiest things to save money are to never get married or have children. Both of those will suck the life and money from you.
Well, don't blame marriage just because you didn't make good choices. My wife and I have enjoyed a good run of it, thanks. And it's not even close to true. If a couple both contribute to the financial life of the family and live prudently, it safeguards you against financial disaster.
In two more years, we're done writing tuition checks. Both of us work very hard, make good money, and have a good nest egg and robust investments. Nevertheless, we began simplifying a couple of years ago. We no longer needed the 3,500 sf house in the posh suburbs, so we bought a condo that was half the size. As a result, we can easily run our household on what my wife makes, while my income goes straight into savings. Because I'm self-employed, it varies.
Sometimes I make as much or more than she does. Sometimes I fall short. Last year was a nightmare year because almost every client went AWOL from May to December because of the stupid trade war. But because we have staunchly maintained the 'live off one income and bank the other' discipline, it made no appreciable dent in our lifestyle. This year? I'm going great guns.
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