Sales Rep 101 – Chapter 16

Changing Jobs Often

I would say that the most misunderstood thing about sales is why people change jobs. And that is understandable. Especially from people that have never worked on 100% commission before. But here is the deal when it comes to sales. Things change fast and one day you can be doing great at your job and making good money and the next thing you know it has completely changed. There are many factors in play on why that happens but it does happen. Maybe you have a new manager who changes things up. Or maybe they hire a new sales person who is making things harder to make money. The truth is there are a thousands reasons for things going south at a job. And many of those are hard to explain to friends and family. Normally I don’t like to use myself as an example but I think this is the best example that I can give. I have changed jobs many times over my career. I started in the Cellular Phone business and started my own business. But after 6 years I needed to make a change so I got into Advertising Sales. Which I loved. I started selling Yellow Pages and was have good success. But speaking of change. Yellow Pages went through huge changes and I decided to make another move. But here is where things got tricky. Many companies selling advertising will hire you and will give you unrealistic expectations. Basically, they are not honest about what type of income you can make. So, in my situation I was divorced and had obligations. And I needed to make a certain amount of income. So if a company is not honest with you up front then after 3-6 months into your new job you may need to make a change. If you are young and you can live on a minimal income then you would be in a better situation to ride it out. But in may case that was not an option. So over a 5 year period I had 4 different jobs and my friends couldn’t understand why I could not keep a job. But what they didn’t understand is that it wasn’t that I couldn’t keep a job but it was that I could not make enough money at that job. And that is hard to explain. You need to willing to make those moves and not let it bother you when your friends and family give you a hard time. The best way to explain it is to help them understand what it means to work on 100% commission but that is hard to do. Work on your answer so you feel comfortable making a change when necessary. The hard truth is that it is highly unlikely that will stay at the same sales job for the majority of you career. But that is not a negative. It took me 20 years and many job changes but in the end I found a job where I made the most money in my entire career. Always have your ears open even when you are happy at your current position. You never know when things can change.