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Can you sell christmas decorations remotely? Is it over the phone or something?
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Aug 2, 2022 17:19
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Thanks for the tips, thread. I guess I'll start at 23 for negotiations, roughly adding in inflation to my old wage plus 20% more for being trained already and the office penalty. It's probably the largest number I can give them without feeling insulting as well. Here's an initial thought of what the email should look like: "Hello [Boss Name], Now that August has arrived and I've had some time to think about coming back to [company], I've decided that I'd love to be part of the family there again. I very much enjoyed getting to know you and [a list of the few other people that worked there] plus having a job that complimented my skillsets so well. However, as many of us are all too aware of, inflation and gas prices have been out-of-control as of late. To make my return possible, I would like a pay raise to $23 an hour to offset these cost-of-living increases and reflect my existing experience in the role. I hope that you are still staying busy and that we can arrange a start for my second season there soon! Sincerely, Demostars" Does this sound good? Lockback posted:Can you sell christmas decorations remotely? Is it over the phone or something? Yeah, they did all their sales online and don't have a showroom, so the job could easily be done from home.
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Aug 2, 2022 19:05
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Hello Boss Person, It's great to hear from you, I loved being a part of $COMPANY! A lot has changed in the past year and I'd need $23/hour for it to work for me and we'd need to talk about scheduling, but if that works for you I'm excited to join the team again. Thanks! Demostars tbh though I think $23 is an overask if this is a retail setting, and unless the person you're talking to is the owner/CEO it's probably not in their power to give you any increase at all. You can and should negotiate hard on your schedule but in the retail world negotiating wage at any higher stakes than a quarter or two an hour is just not done. Still, if it's not worth it to you at the old $18 wage then absolutely ask for what you want plus 10-20% and let them be the ones to say no.
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Aug 2, 2022 20:30
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Eric the Mauve posted:Hello Boss Person, Not a retail job, it's actually more of a sales position that I wasn't making any commission for. The guy is the owner and told me last year they broke seven figures of revenue for the first time ever, with plans of doubling that to $2.5 million this year. For reference, my average sale was probably around $3500. I didn't manage to make a lot of sales because I was hired late into the season, though, so altogether my sales were worth about $50k (my coworker who started earlier than me sold closer to $200k IIRC). Still, though, I'm not sure if I'm the most persuasive person in the world for sales and so am fine with just being hourly if I'm making more than I could anywhere else. The job also requires you to know how to use Google Earth effectively so it's fairly niche in terms of overall skills needed. I feel like I don't really have a BATNA so maybe you're right that it may not be worth it to push too hard for a raise, but I also don't know what their BATNA is either if they don't get me again which makes me feel like I have leverage. I dunno, say I don't do much better than last season and only do $75k worth of sales. How much of that would an average salesman get as commission? I guess that's a bigger indicator of whether or not 23/hr is actually fair to ask for, because maybe I'm underestimating my own worth even with that number. Stealth edit: Also, in retrospect, my coworker who also didn't make commission got ripped the gently caress off for doing 4x my numbers and getting the same hourly rate as me, right? (Less until I was hired.) Technically he was permanent and full-time versus my part-time and got some extra benefits because of that, but he probably makes beaucoup bucks anywhere he gets a commission, right? Edit 2: To clarify, the person I'm talking to is the COO of the company, but it is technically a subsidiary of a larger company and he probably will have to talk to someone else about the raise. demostars fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Aug 2, 2022 |
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Aug 2, 2022 21:34
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I wish you the best but almost every point there seems stacked against you getting paid what you’re worth. Never hurts to try though.
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Aug 2, 2022 22:09
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demostars posted:Not a retail job, it's actually more of a sales position that I wasn't making any commission for. The guy is the owner and told me last year they broke seven figures of revenue for the first time ever, with plans of doubling that to $2.5 million this year. For reference, my average sale was probably around $3500. I didn't manage to make a lot of sales because I was hired late into the season, though, so altogether my sales were worth about $50k (my coworker who started earlier than me sold closer to $200k IIRC). Still, though, I'm not sure if I'm the most persuasive person in the world for sales and so am fine with just being hourly if I'm making more than I could anywhere else. The job also requires you to know how to use Google Earth effectively so it's fairly niche in terms of overall skills needed. I feel like I don't really have a BATNA so maybe you're right that it may not be worth it to push too hard for a raise, but I also don't know what their BATNA is either if they don't get me again which makes me feel like I have leverage. Hey Boss, I understand we broke seven figs of revenue last year and the plan is to hit $2.5m this year. In order to do that I'm anticipating we will be wanting to hire more sales staff and train them with experienced staff from last year. Given my experience with the role and my specialized skills in in Google Earth I'd be happy to come back and help grow the team so we can hit our revenue target. This season I'm looking to hit $23/hr or a base rate + commission that will get me there. Let me know what your plans are for the department this year and if we can make things work.
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Aug 2, 2022 22:27
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 at paying salespeople by the hour.
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Aug 2, 2022 22:41
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Eric the Mauve posted:
Technically don't you have to have a minimum written into the contract? But also then you fire anyone who isn't over the minimum so
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Aug 2, 2022 23:36
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Eric the Mauve posted:
Seriously
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Aug 2, 2022 23:53
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Did some napkin math and realized that I would have made more money last year with a base pay of $0/hr and a commission of 15%, so yeah, seems like REMEMBER SPONGE MONKEYS is right that this company isn't seeking to give their sales reps market rate for their work and I might have a tough road in negotiations. Gonna sleep on it for today and finalize my response tomorrow.leper khan posted:Technically don't you have to have a minimum written into the contract? But also then you fire anyone who isn't over the minimum so By minimum do you mean a sales quota? Technically I didn't have one which is why my title was "Quoter" and not "Sales Rep," but we were expected to handle the sale too if anyone expressed interest after seeing our very high prices. Might complicate things if I do need to meet a quota to receive a commission because sales could dry up just because we no longer have installation slots available before Christmas. I don't think I'd ever be able to get fired before the end of the season if I wasn't meeting a quota, though, since there'd be no way to hire someone else to handle the influx of quotes that comes in late November/early December from people too stupid to realize they needed to schedule something months ago if they ever wanted their poo poo up by Christmas.
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Aug 3, 2022 00:14
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demostars posted:Did some napkin math and realized that I would have made more money last year with a base pay of $0/hr and a commission of 15%, so yeah, seems like REMEMBER SPONGE MONKEYS is right that this company isn't seeking to give their sales reps market rate for their work and I might have a tough road in negotiations. Gonna sleep on it for today and finalize my response tomorrow. I mean you can't have a position that pays less than minimum wage.
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Aug 3, 2022 01:55
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If you make less than x on commissions we will pay you x. Also if this happens more than once or twice you’re fired. Also depending on the deal if we have to pay you x actually we’ll just take it off your next commission payment.
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Aug 3, 2022 02:03
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Eric the Mauve posted:
Yeah this is nuts. Sales is HARD which is why it (usually) is heavily incented by commissions.
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Aug 3, 2022 02:47
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Does this thread cover essentially asking for a raise in your current job? I have my mid-year coming up and I've been frustrated my base pay is well under 10% of my production goal. I know I'm underpaid compared to my peers as I haven't jumped companies for higher pay (nor do I want to if it can be prevented). But I don't have any kind of hard data to support this. I have no idea how to go about broaching this topic. I'm thinking I need to bring it up at mid-year so it's in mind at year-end. My boss is great and she did spend more of last year's raise budget on me. I've exceeded my goals in the first two years of the role. And have a territory that wasn't doing much before producing now. But I'm still way behind anyone who came from another company. How do I approach this conversation / bring it up? Dango Bango fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Aug 3, 2022 |
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Aug 3, 2022 04:12
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Dango Bango posted:Does this thread cover essentially asking for a raise in your current job? I have my mid-year coming up and I've been frustrated my base pay is well under 10% of my production goal. I know I'm underpaid compared to my peers as I haven't jumped companies for higher pay (nor do I want to if it can be prevented). But I don't have any kind of hard data to support this. Ask for a meeting to discuss your compensation. Just do it, do not wait for arbitrary dates. What you should do in preparation is to get an idea of the market rate of your position and some competing offers that you can accepts when negotiations don't go your way. Yes, you said you don't want to leave, but knowing you could take an offer from company x with your current salary + 25% will give you a much better position to negotiate than "Hi I would like more money, but if not that's ok, too".
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Aug 3, 2022 07:59
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Beefeater1980 posted:Yeah this is nuts. Sales is HARD which is why it (usually) is heavily incented by commissions. Yeah this. Demostars, if you can actually sell poo poo well enough to make a company money on a short stint and you liked it enough to want to go back, why the gently caress are you working retail? Go find a commission sales job and get that bread. People who can actually sell are few and far between.
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Aug 3, 2022 10:40
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Dango Bango posted:Does this thread cover essentially asking for a raise in your current job? I have my mid-year coming up and I've been frustrated my base pay is well under 10% of my production goal. I know I'm underpaid compared to my peers as I haven't jumped companies for higher pay (nor do I want to if it can be prevented). But I don't have any kind of hard data to support this. SEKCobra posted:Ask for a meeting to discuss your compensation. Just do it, do not wait for arbitrary dates. If you ask for more, and are told no, and stay; you lose respect and leverage forever. You're also first to go in downturns. The thread position is it isn't a negotiation unless you have a compelling BATNA or are willing to be called on a bluff of one. I could imagine a case where just loving off forever is a good BATNA, but most of us are not early employees straight off of an IPO. And it's probably project choice or role not money in that case.
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Aug 3, 2022 14:42
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leper khan posted:If you ask for more, and are told no, and stay; you lose respect and leverage forever. You're also first to go in downturns. Well, that's simply not true and nonsensical. Employees discussing promotions and raises is an extremely common conversation any manager has, and it's extremely rare for any manager to be able to make an immediate change, so the answer is almost always some form of "No, but (We can do stuff over the next 6 months/we'd like to see xyz/we need to wait until this date)". I think you're conflating bringing a competing offer to your current job and getting told "No, we won't match". In that case, you are basically being told we won't budge you from your role so if you don't take the other offer be prepared to always be doing that job. Talking to your manager about raises and promotions is normal. Some advice on getting raises: I don't want to get into some semantic bullshit, but this is less a negotiation as it is a process. It's sort of a negotiation as you are trying to get something and your (implied) threat is to leave, but it's usually a process to get to the bargaining table in the first place, and usually its more of a "Here's what you get" kinda thing, there are things you can do to influence that though. Most important thing is your manager probably does not have the power to unilaterally change salary or title. Also, merit increase time is probably the worst time to try to get a significant increase. Merit is almost always a pool of money, so to give one person an extra 3% someone(s) else have to get less. This means there are few levers to pull. What you usually want is an adjustment, which basically says "Yeah, your salary needs to be reset at X". This typically happens off-cycle, not during raise time. So a few things: 1. Start the conversation well before you feel you need to make X+Y. Walking into a room and saying "I need a 10% raise by next paycheck" won't go well. 2. I would usually suggest having a number in mind, and get there by going above and anchoring. Unlike a new job, there are no secrets anymore. If you don't give a number, you'll be given something low and you won't be able to really counter. If you are at $80 and you want to be at $90, ask for $100. This is why its recommended to often here to occasionally interview even if you're happy at your job to understand where you market is. Don't trust your boss to tell you what your market is. 3. Be prepped to get to that number over time. I find it more effective getting my people more money if I can spread the increases out. Again, if this is not palatable you might be better off doing a legit job hunt. 4. For promotions, compare yourself to the job duties, not to other people. It's human nature to say "I do X more than this guy, so I should be paid X more" but that's a non-starter most of the time. Sticking to documented roles and expectations is far more effective. 5. Trying to get your company to match an offer is tricky. Generally I wouldn't recommend it, some people take great offense to it, and if they don't match you kinda have to leave and you've shown your hand that you don't really need a raise. I think the "Leave and come back" usually works better. All that said, sometimes it's the best way to get certain companies off their rear end, and I've seen it work real well for some people. Depends on your org, and it'll be hard to get advice from the outside. So basically, talk with your manager, not during raise time, and try to have some solid market numbers in mind. Back things up with your performance, and you need to be patient. If you don't want to be patient, that's ok too! That probably means you should start looking.
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Aug 3, 2022 15:57
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Dik Hz posted:Yeah this. Demostars, if you can actually sell poo poo well enough to make a company money on a short stint and you liked it enough to want to go back, why the gently caress are you working retail? Go find a commission sales job and get that bread. Well, I don't disagree with that last sentence, but that's also why I haven't looked for a sales job after this one  I was mostly looking for entry-level geospatial stuff because figuring out the prices was the half of the job I really enjoyed, but there's not a lot of those near me and the experience I got in "Google Earth" hasn't wowed any places I applied to. I was majoring in geography before I dropped out of school and have thought about maybe picking up a GIS cert from an online school to help me out, which might be my actual BATNA if I stay in retail and don't go back to this place. Our whole clientele consisted of whales too since we branded ourselves as "boutique" and had four-figure pricetags minimum, so 80% of the people ignored all your emails or said "no thanks" and you didn't have to care, because we were only selling to the 20% that could seemingly afford our product. I'm not sure where else in the sales industry things are so simple because you're only ever meant to sell to rich simpletons impressed by shiny things and manger scenes, but if you have a specific suggestion I'll take a look at what's around me.I think I'm gonna use Mantle's post as a template on how to respond to the job offer, I like how it brings up factual points from my posts to justify why I'm asking for an extra $5/hour. It also seems like it opens a dialogue more since I'm not anticipating getting hired at the $23/hr rate, so I think I can steer it to something like $21 + hybrid remote and I'd be happy to do it and decide in 2023 where I want to go from here. Definitely don't want to do a three-peat at this place, though!
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Aug 3, 2022 16:07
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Giving reasons arguing why you should get more money doesn't strengthen your position. It weakens it. Just say "I need $X".
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Aug 3, 2022 16:11
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Eric the Mauve posted:Giving reasons arguing why you should get more money doesn't strengthen your position. It weakens it. Just say "I need $X". Alright, I went ahead and cleaned your post up and sent it his way. Fingers crossed I get what I want, but honestly going to get a cert to get a job I want more doesn't sound too bad either, tbh
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Aug 3, 2022 16:46
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Lockback posted:
This is gold right here, and it mirrors my experience working in mid/large corporations most of my career. Dango Bango, you might be late to start the adjustment conversation. There's a best time to do this in most corps, and August is getting a little late. Usually people are already working on next year's budget by now, and the rest of the year is set in stone. I find the best time is in the March to June range (for a company on a normal annual calendar, if your FY is June to May or something YMMV) Most non lovely managers want their employees happy and productive. It's not their money, so if giving you 10K more a year keeps you happy and productive they would sign off on it in a heartbeat. It takes a long time to hire and get a new employee up to speed and productive. The bullshit preventing things from happening is usually 2 or 3 levels up in your org, or on the HR side of things. It's one of the most frustrating things about working in larger companies, is no one considers how much you lose when an experienced employee leaves. That 20K they want is nothing compared to the cost of recruiting, training, and getting a new employee up to speed and productive, but I don't think they teach that poo poo in business school for some reason.
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Aug 3, 2022 17:47
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Yeah, it's not your immediate boss's money, and consequently it's not their decision. It's vital to bear in mind that your boss doesn't actually have the authority to give you an off cycle raise. When you ask them for a raise, you're actually asking their C-suite overlord for a raise that would come right out of their own pocket, and they don't give a poo poo about you as a person. Not to say it's impossible. But it's swimming against a real strong current, and you shouldn't hold it against your boss if they don't have the political capital to get it done, even if they sincerely want to. Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Aug 3, 2022 |
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Aug 3, 2022 18:38
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demostars posted:Well, I don't disagree with that last sentence, but that's also why I haven't looked for a sales job after this one That you find it easy suggests you’re good at it imo. Selling 4-figgy crèches doesn’t sound easy to me. You’re the expert on you; could it be a touch of impostor syndrome?
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Aug 3, 2022 19:44
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After all this effort, I get into this job and it’s become clear to me that middle managements whole job is to just be there and make undeserved amounts of money
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Aug 4, 2022 02:35
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Pillowpants posted:After all this effort, I get into this job and it’s become clear to me that middle managements whole job is to just be there and make undeserved amounts of money Hey now. Sometimes I make PowerPoints.
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Aug 4, 2022 02:36
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Pillowpants posted:After all this effort, I get into this job and it’s become clear to me that middle managements whole job is to just be there and make undeserved amounts of money yeah, becoming a manager made me lose all of the respect i had for them and i already mostly thought they were useless the job exists so corporate can do poo poo like hit all their targets and turn around and give everyone 0% raises without having to look any commoners in their eyes, and it is easy as hell outside of having to deliver lovely news once a year
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Aug 4, 2022 02:58
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Lol they just did a reorganization at my place and hired a "Director of HR" with no experience nor education in HR. I was tasked with teaching things like "what's the difference between exempt and non exempt?" Put in my notice not too long after.
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Aug 4, 2022 03:08
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Thank you both so much for these posts. Especially that effort post Lockback. Good point on the timing of this and budgets. I went back in my salary history and the last mid term adjustment I got was actually in March. I think that timing will work better because I'll have three years of "I exceeded my goals" under my belt in a territory that was an afterthought before. (At least that was my thought when I realized what a drop in the bucket my "I pulled some strings to get you a bigger raise this year" was when the company made billions over plan.)
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Aug 4, 2022 03:42
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Parallelwoody posted:Lol they just did a reorganization at my place and hired a "Director of HR" with no experience nor education in HR. I was tasked with teaching things like "what's the difference between exempt and non exempt?" Put in my notice not too long after. Oof. I regard HR as the enemy but I still feel for you there because you are a Goon and therefore likely human  Lockback posted:Hey now. Ugh. I used to want to be competent and change the world. Now I just want to break through into management and start making Even More Money because I've finally accepted that until Something Changes, that's all that really matters >_<
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Aug 4, 2022 04:18
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Zarin posted:Oof. I regard HR as the enemy but I still feel for you there because you are a Goon and therefore likely human Everybody thinks HR is the enemy but I just spent 7 years doing payroll as part of HR and was routinely recognized outside of HR and being the only one who responded to emails timely/was at all helpful. 11 of the 14 execs at the company reached out to me in private messages on LinkedIn to say something along those lines too.
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Aug 4, 2022 12:46
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Yeah we had an HR person like that. It was her first job out of college. They fired her for making the rest of them look bad.
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Aug 4, 2022 14:24
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First HR person I dealt with was when I was a desktop support intern at a Fortune 500 in college. She would apologise if she gave us less than a week's notice to get a new hire's accounts and PC set up. My expectations were set unreasonably high, and I have been nothing but disappointed since then.
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Aug 4, 2022 14:31
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The first professional HR person I ever dealt with was a young sociopath rocketing her way upward. She successfully won a power struggle with the VP of operations--who had made it known he wished me to be placed in the brand new Management Development Program, which the HR person was administrating, making me an inadvertent pretext for their power struggle; I was summarily fired a week after his "retirement" and her promotion to HR director. She hit the C suite at a different company about three years later. I eventually came to understand that was a very unusual situation, and HR people are almost always passive-aggressive drones whose lasting ire you will attract if you attempt to make them do any work.
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Aug 4, 2022 15:03
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My first HR experiences at a normal corporate job were two absolutely soulless, rotten empty suits, the most unpleasant and obdurate people in the loving universe. Most of my later experiences were better and much more reasonable, thankfully.
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Aug 4, 2022 15:51
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I got an email this morning from a job I've been getting hired onto informing me that they want me to start in early September. There are two concerns I can think of: The first is that I am going to have to move across the country for this job. (I'm in Utah, it's in New York.) I'm not sure if a month would be enough time for me to find a place and get all moved in. The second is that I still haven't finished my background check for the position yet. I don't want to commit to it, have a start date, and then have it yanked because something happened with the background investigation. (I don't think anything will, but then again, I don't think anybody does!) I was thinking about asking for another month or so. Has anybody here been in a similar position? Would I be asking for too much? EDIT: Having thought about it a little, I don't have a firm/final offer from them, only a conditional one. I'm going to need a firm offer to commit one way or another, because I can't move across the country for a job offer that I haven't received yet. What an odd situation! Dammerung fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Aug 4, 2022 |
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Aug 4, 2022 16:50
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Yeah a professional "No way in hell can I relocate to NYC in that timeframe, I need 8 weeks" email is what I would do there, though I think you'll have to be prepared to live with doing it in 6. Companies are usually pretty understanding about this but it's a business and they're not going to put their needs on hold forever for the sake of yours. Is relo a part of the offer?
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Aug 4, 2022 17:12
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Relo should be part of it, if they want you to start earlier (especially mid month) you may also want to ask for hotel expenses or additional relo
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Aug 4, 2022 17:26
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Eric the Mauve posted:Yeah a professional "No way in hell can I relocate to NYC in that timeframe, I need 8 weeks" email is what I would do there, though I think you'll have to be prepared to live with doing it in 6. Companies are usually pretty understanding about this but it's a business and they're not going to put their needs on hold forever for the sake of yours. The good news is (and I apologize for not mentioning this before!), it would be with the Federal government, so I think they'd be more willing to slow things down for me if push came to shove. The other thing is that I do need to go through a background check for clearance, that's a necessary part of the job, so I have no idea what their plan is if that doesn't come through in time Eric the Mauve posted:Is relo a part of the offer? Jordan7hm posted:Relo should be part of it, if they want you to start earlier (especially mid month) you may also want to ask for hotel expenses or additional relo It's not, but in all fairness, I did know that when I applied for the job! I have family in New York who are excited for me to be living closer to them, and the job would be a significant enough pay increase over my current one to make it worth it. I'm pretty sure they'll be inflexible with relocation, but pretty sure isn't a certainty, and if not now, when? I'll go for it!
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Aug 4, 2022 17:35
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Dammerung posted:It's not, but in all fairness, I did know that when I applied for the job! I have family in New York who are excited for me to be living closer to them, and the job would be a significant enough pay increase over my current one to make it worth it. Did you check out any cost of living salary calculators? I don't know where you live in Utah or exactly where you're moving to in NYC so I just randomly put in a Salt Lake City -> Brooklyn and your salary would almost need to be doubled for it to not effectively be a pay cut due to COL. So for an actual significant pay increase, you would need to be offer *more* than double your current salary. Just wanted to make sure you factored that in before you move across the country and realize you've made a horrible mistake.
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