Hey Kally,

I love that you have helped many readers with their career problems. Your bits of advice are usually no BS and straightforward helpful. As much as I always enjoy reading other people’s problem, I never thought I’ll need to ask you for help. But now I kinda have gotten me into a troublesome fix.

You see, I resign from a job I love but unfortunately doesn’t pay the bills much and ended up with a company that seems to me – dubious. 4 months ago, I was hired by this company to do sales. However, they kept stalling my training until a month has passed with me sitting at my desk, just surfing YouTube, doing nothing because there was nothing to sell. Then when I was so-called in training, they did not have a prototype to show me how it works. Everything is all based on theory. I’m supposed to sell a waste curated machine targeting potential clients like Hospitals, schools, NGOs.

After a few days of training, they particularly pushed me out to the field to sell. Doing sales is not difficult for me as I’m used to doing that in my old jobs and plus I could tap on my previous contacts since there aren’t any clashes in the products I used to sell.

Throughout these months of sales, I’m getting uncomfortable, mainly due to the fact we haven’t got our manufacturer to start producing the machines that I was selling. I already had 10 contracts signed. So basically, I sold thin air! I’m not sure if I like this kind of selling. I did talk to my fellow colleagues and some of them admit that they smell something fishy. Half of my contracts had already paid in full without getting anything from us at all.

When I scheduled a meeting with my boss, it always gets rescheduled at the last moment. I have been trying to talk to someone high up above for the last one month but to no avail.

Am I right to be concern? Or I’m such a busybody, sticking my nose where it is not my business? By my role as a salesperson, I have done my job and it is kinda unusual that I follow up on the orders when it is someone else’s job to do so.

Please advise.

Thanks a lot!

Sincerely,
Hank K

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Dear Hank,

Thank you for writing to me. Your problem sounds perplexing! But I have a simple solution for you. Go with your heart this time. If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t right for you.

As a salesperson, as much as keeping things professionally as possible, you are still putting your face value and your reputation on the line. Believe it or not, clients usually buy products because 50% they need it and 50% because you convince them they need it. There’s a saying, a good salesman sells ice to Eskimos. Hence, most of the time, people are still buying products from you, not your company. They like you, trust your words and willing to purchase something from you. That’s sales.

A good and conscious salesperson, however, will only sell if they believe in the products they endorsed. But in the reality, it is not easy as my words deem it is. You may be in a company you loved but doesn’t believe in their services and products.

So you need to ask yourself is this, “Is this the only product this company has?”

If your company has a range of good products but just this one time off, a product is a fluke (happens to every good company), stay on and help to mature the product by providing feedback and contributing its growth.

However if this company only has this one product and proven your suspicions are right, you might be heading into a cloud of empty promises. I will insist on having that talk with the higher management before I proceed to sell anymore. Make that fact known and I’m pretty sure your boss will be available to have a chat with you immediately. You do deserve an answer. I’m surprised that customer service, marketing and operations did not beat you to it. You can also try to ask around those mentioned departments and maybe someone has an answer to your concerns.

Overall, I’d say go with your guts on this on particularly you are such a good salesperson, you won’t have a problem finding another sales job as good if not better than the current one you have. Don’t waste your reputation on a company that couldn’t do right by their customers.

Good luck!

Regards,
Kally@MiddleMe.net