The_Salesman, Part 1

Many Home Improvement Salesmen do not earn a salary. No, many do not make one dime unless they sell you something. What’s worse, the salesman may have driven two hours to get to your home. He may also have paid for the gas to get to your home. It’s cost him maybe $20.00 out of his own pocket in gas money just getting to you. He is motivated. In some ways he is a victim too.

The average home improvement company office may have 20 salesmen. Of these, maybe two are making well over $15,000 a month. Yes, they really do. Another ten are making maybe $5,000 a month. The rest are starving, yes they can actually be making nothing and then going in the hole for gas.

The sales manager can be a snake. The sales manager may play one salesman against another. The sales manager tries to control his salesmen as tightly as the salesmen try to control their customers.

The salesmen usually report to the company’s sales office each day at a specific time. Usually, this is at 9AM. This may be illegal under some state's laws. The salesmen are usually “outside contractors” and thus they should have varied hours. It is done anyway. The salesmen do not complain. They are lured by the promise of great fortunes and may well be addicted to some kind of “chase and kill” syndrome.

The salesman is issued his sales leads and he then will figure out how valuable they might be. He will have a Bible with him. This Bible is the Thomas Brothers map book for his area. Some salesmen need several map books because they might cover several major cities. The leads he gets will be referenced by Thomas Brothers map book page numbers and grid coordinates. Something like “213, A 6” tells him quite a lot. He will quickly have much of that book and the zip codes memorized. He can often tell you his chances of a sale by just hearing the page number or the zip code. He will usually mark the location of the lead right on the map page in ink. In this way he can see what sales he may have made in the area in the past.

The salesman’s dream of “The Big Kill” is reinforced by the sales manager. The sales manager really does have two salesmen who are making $15,000 a month. He really does. The reasons for this may be far darker and more insidious than you can imagine. He may have purposely created them.

Some say that this “salesman’s addiction” is like a drug addict’s high or a gambler’s high. In more refined societies you find this same “high” in a runner’s high. No, golfers only get a high at the clubhouse after the game. It is not possible to get this charged up by riding around in an electric golf cart.