Answer - I started out selling insurance. I always looked at the want ads. [I still do.) Every Sunday I would look through the paper, and one day I saw an ad for sales with a big company. It was in my area, and it was a textbook company, one that I had read about in school. I followed up on the advertisement. I interviewed on Thursday, made the decision on Friday, and I started on Monday with the training. I thought it would be a fantastic job, and I got into it, and it has been.
I got started mostly through my father, since he worked for the same company. I got a degree in business administration, and I figured that I would give insurance a shot to see what happens. I like it a lot so far.
I originally worked for a gentleman who was the president of a brokerage house. He suggested that I go to Wall Street. That was back in 1968. So I went to work in the operations area, and that's how I got introduced to the securities industry.
Question - What skills are valuable in direct sales?
Answer - You have to be able to talk with people. You have to have a personality that gets clients to talk about what they are thinking, what is important to them. You have to be outgoing. You should have an understanding of figures and financing arrangements.
Either you are a salesperson or you're not. You can improve your selling techniques, but you're either blessed with the ability to sell or you're not. You can improve the mechanics; those things can be taught. But it comes down to being able to say, "Hi! I'm with so and so," and to go on from there.
Being able to talk, some call it bull. You can't be afraid to talk to people, whether they are like you or not. So really, it's just a question of being able to communicate.
I'm the agent, the market researcher, the financial planner, everything. I keep in touch with the banks; I work with loan officers; I have to be constantly informed about finances, interest rates, down payments, payments to close. You've really got to understand the financing and be able to explain it.
Question - How is the organization of your company set up?
Answer - I'm really an independent agent; the only person above me is the broker or manager. You can't really be promoted into it. You have to study and pass an exam to become certified to sell real estate.
Directly above the door-to-door salespeople are the territory managers, who are assigned a specific territory. They do a lot of the servicing and work with the people in door-to-door sales. There are a lot of administrative responsibilities. Territory managers are still selling, but they use a lot more creativity. It's more along the lines of marketing. You can use your own ideas on how to get the product out, whereas in door-to-door it's pretty stifling. You're told to go through an area and get as many sales as you can, and you'll probably never see that territory again. It's a hard-sell type of thing. A territory manager has call-back situations, and can soften up a little bit.
A supervisor is the next step. In the sales department, there are three supervisors, and then a project manager. There is a pretty good turnover of people at the bottom level, but in the upper levels there is not a very high turnover at all.
You start in the inside sales department, but you help other departments, underwriting, for instance. I make sales calls with the sales representatives to learn the business and to get some experience.
Question - How are you evaluated?
Answer - I'm part of a class of 125 people. For example, the average broker or dealer in the first full year will average a gross of $60,000. A person who grosses in the $70,000's is a little bit above average, and a person who grosses $80,000 or so the first year is considered to be extraordinary. I'm evaluated on the basis of my performance in relationship to that class, and my performance based upon the past performance of account executives of the firm.
There are three supervisors for about thirty-two people on the staff, which is divided into teams. The supervisors decided the territory assignments. There is good territory and bad territory, so they can pick and choose who gets the good area. They are evaluated on how well the people under them have produced. There are ten to eleven salespeople on each team, and they'd have contests, throw parties, or whatever for the team that 'produced the most per week and per quarter.
There is a conference with your manager to discuss what your projection is going to be for the coming year. You maybe spend thirty-five to forty minutes and talk about goals for the next fiscal year. For example, I plan to list this many houses on an average per month, I plan o sell this many, and if I do all these things and track my goals on a month-to-month basis, I am going to earn X amount of dollars.
