Dear Mr. President: Why We Are Not Hiring

American Thinker ^ | February 12, 2010 | C. Edmund Wright

[Crusher138]

In my 23 years in the industry I have hired 148 account executives. Most were straight commission. About 20% made a VERY good living. About 30% did okay. The rest spent more time complaining about how hard it was than actually working.

We had a VERIFIED, PROVEN formula that showed if you did as little as walked in cold (we sell primarily to small businesses) introduced yourself, dropped off a flier, and left, over time you would earn an average of $2 per walk in. More ambitious reps would target vertical markets and do even better. Over 80% of our clients reorder within six months and commissions are paid on reorders, even though there is generally minimal follow up needed. By my fourth year I had sales in excess of $1 million. If you treat it like a job and actually work, you do well.

Oh, the faint of heart need not apply.

[Crusher138]

With your attitude, I can see why you are having trouble getting people to work for you. (Just another whiny, lazy, middle aged man.)

Dude, I am anything but lazy.

I am getting tired of people who think that 2010 is the same as 2006 and that just because they have been earning big bucks they should continue to earn big bucks.

I am getting tired of people who think that it wasn't their fault at all that the company who had paid them so generously for years - maybe too generously - has found itself in financial trouble.

I am getting tired of people who expect ANY job to be a guarantee.

Mostly I'm getting tired of being painted as a bad guy because I own a business. Small business owners like me drive the economy. Right now I am pretty much the entire company - design, production, sales, and administration. To grow the company we need sales, so I am willing to pay out 15 to 20% of each sale to a rep. That will leave me about 20% gross profit, out of which I have to pay the monthly financing on my production equipment, my rent, supplies, utilities, etc.

Forgive me if I seem put out, but to hear a former pharmaceutical rep complain that his $100K+ a year job, with full health insurance, a company car, and generous expense account is no more - well, my heart just pumps purple p!ss for him.

If any of these people were TRULY worth that kind of money they would start their own companies and just rake in the big bucks. Yeah, I didn't think so.

[markman46]

it’s not just China, it’s India too

[RC one]

is it them or is it us?

[markman46]

them, cheap labor. I have to work with an Indian company that processes health insurance claims.. lets just say they cost more in mistakes then what they “save” in labor and benefits

[RC one]

don’t blame them, blame the guys that hired them.

[markman46]

oh believe me I do in spades, cost a lot of people i worked with to get rifed.

[1rudeboy]

. . . the cost of fuel was being driven up by energy speculators who were, by and large, typical capitalists trying to make a buck off the supply and demand cycle. If you look at the cost of fuel now, it is down to a modest $2.50/gal.

Who drove the price of gas down? Perhaps those same "energy speculators?" Perhaps we should slap a 5000% tax on them also. Think of how our economy would boom.