Show me the Money (and the outside job you promised)

Recently I had lunch (At El Metate in Belmont, which still brings it) with a young sales guy and he asked me a question that I hear all the time: How can I ask my company to promote me to outside sales? As he should have been able to tell from my long winded, anecdote laden answer, I really don’t know. The truth is, the only time I’ve ever made any type of real leap was when a) I joined a new company or b) my leverage had grown so disproportionate to the short timer sales management around me that I threatened (and was fully prepared) to leave. Absent of those two circumstances, particularly in a down economy, solving that age old challenge has not been my forte. But since this is a blog, I can write, not do.

Let’s start with what not to do. The first time I asked for a raise was after I had been in sales for a year. I had survived the “topgrades” that replaced 8 out of 12 young sales people, worked or travelled 100 hours a week, accounted for about 40% of the company’s revenue, managed the top customers with the most CEO attention, and was making a $27K salary with a commission rate of .25% on deals. Easy case to make. My solution? After a particularly miserable day of sales calls in which I drove around Massachusetts in 90 degree, humid weather in my college beater Subaru with no air conditioning, I ran into the other sales guy who had the same situation as me. We compared stories until we were lathered up into a fury of righteous indignation and then marched into our manager’s office to have “a chat.” We peppered him with details of the lousy product we sold, how we travelled on Sundays, the hardware partner reps that made ten times what we did, how we hadn’t had a day off since college, had to put up with all the crazy CEO dinners, couldn’t park out front, etc., and wrapped it all up by telling him that we deserved to be making more money. He basically threw us out of his office- and he should have- because we didn’t do the following:

  Get an executive champion: The first challenge that anyone needs to overcome while trying to move up is not specific to sales; it’s the classic phenomenon of pigeonholing. If you get your start at a company as the receptionist, everyone gets used to seeing you answering phones at the front desk and buying the CEO’s mother’s day cards.  Changing people’s original perception of you in the smiling monkey tree called corporate life is very difficult. If you present your case for promotion to your immediate manager, he sees you as Fred Savage (or Judge Reinhold, for that matter) in Vice Versa- a kid trying to talk, look and act like an adult. So ignore your sales manager on this one- that should come naturally- and enlist the highest ranking person that you have charmed in some way to help you move up.

Prepare your case: Have all your numbers and past success metrics right at your fingertips. Find out what other companies (competitors a bonus) are paying and how they are promoting their reps. If you want to be an outside rep, match all your competencies to what the current bag carriers are doing. If you think you should be a manager, show that you can enable results, “see the bigger picture” and embody whatever other happy horsesh^t trends are in the business books for management these days. Know exactly what (or how much) you want and make all points lead to that result.

Nail the event: This is a personnel decision, which is a confrontation that makes even the coolest executive get all squirrelly. Formalize the meeting on the calendar. It is not OK for the person to multi-task while you present your case, nor is it something you can work out in the car on the way to a customer. If the person won’t agree to look you in the eye and give you their undivided attention then suggest another time and venue- like maybe the HR manager’s office.  Once you have the gravity of the situation down, stick to the objective points (nobody cares what you “deserve” and everyone has bills to pay) and don’t get emotional. After all, you’re just stating the facts. Just like sales meetings- be confident but not cocky. Then ask for a timetable for when you will get what you want and/or a list of things that need to be fulfilled in order to get them. Don’t leave without next steps firmly in place, and a promise that this will be IN WRITING by a certain date. And for heaven’s sake do it alone.

This is all I got. Good luck. Hey- you can always fall back on Plan B- b^tching about the man holding you down guarantees you a place amongst friends at the local bar.

Garth

BTW- I’m really not any better at this than I was 15 years ago- just ask Fowler.