Answer - The thing that interested me in computer sales was that the money is very good. Plus, it's not something that is going to fade away in ten years.
My major interest is dealing with people day in and day out in different situations. It is not a monotonous type of position; each day brings a different challenge.
The entry-level position was called associate marketing representative. That's a training status for our marketing representatives. The training program lasts approximately six months. It's an on-the-job training position. You actually spend time with our customers as well as with number of marketing representatives. You also spend time in the home office with our staff support people; with the transportation people, who let the product out; and with the wholesale marketing people, who sell a generic product to our large customers. The only classroom work is in the computer area.
Once you complete the training program, you're given a number if accounts in an assigned territory. You may have between ten and twenty stations, five or ten bulk plants, and possibly two or three jobbers. A workload of fifteen to twenty-five accounts is relatively normal. f there is a high level of concentration of clients, you may have a small geographical territory, but if you have a sparsely populated area, you can have an area as large as the entire southeastern quarter of the state.
Very rarely does a person go from a marketing representative straight to a sales management position, which would be the next step. Normally sales representatives are given at least two territories, to see how they react in different environments. They might also go to a lumber of other positions for further exposure, for instance, in the area of personnel or credit.
The training program only lasts for about two to three months. There is one level-sales representative-and that is about it, unless you let into management.
Before I accepted the job, I spent a day in the field, which I would suggest to anyone. I entered the field as a sales representative, and then was promoted to a district field representative, where I had more responsibilities than before. There was training and management training, that type of thing.
I was then promoted to unit manager and was responsible for four salespeople and a few major accounts, some recruiting, and the overall sales responsibility for a larger geographic area. Then I was interviewed and given an assignment in the surgical products division after a two-month training program. Then I was appointed area manager.
Question - What are your job responsibilities?
Answer - We market all sorts of products a dentist uses, ranging from the smallest item, like dental floss, to the larger, capital equipment items, like X-ray machines, chairs, and all sorts of heavy equipment. We also offer an office planning service and a financial planning service.
My first responsibility is to the dentist; to avail him or her of tin best possible service-to fill orders promptly, quickly, and efficiently; to answer any questions; and to handle any problems with service. We're e service-oriented company, because our main competitor is a mail-order house. They have a catalogue of products that are generally less expensive than ours, so the dentist can just call the toll-free number and place an order. We have to stress that our service is worth the difference in price. The relationship you have with the client can make or break you. There are doctors who trust me enough to come up and give me a bulk list or ask me what I think of a particular product. I won't always have the answer, but I make sure I get it.
I sell radio time by qualifying the station and who we reach, both demographically and psychographically, for advertisers. To that I apply a rate that would maximize efficiency for them to be able to afford to buy the radio advertising time. We call on several different types of clients, but we get the majority of our business from advertising agencies. These agencies might handle ten or twenty accounts of radio advertisers or potential radio advertisers. These are national and regional accounts. We keep the agency's media buyers informed about what is going on around the station-our rates, what promotions are running, everything that we're doing-so that they know and understand the radio station very well. We, in turn, like to find out as much as we can about the clients they have and what their needs might be. Then we try to match the stations to those clients' needs. So by calling on the media buyer, we are then calling on twenty people at the same time. It makes us more efficient.
We do everything for the small client-the writing, creative, and production. What we have to be able to do is take enough time and ask the right questions. We have to try to know as much about their business as they do. Otherwise we won't be able to write an intelligent sales message. We're not only selling them space, we're selling their product for them. We have to know exactly what has to be said about the product or service. It gets quite involved. Imagine doing that with five or ten people every day, and they're all different.
We are also responsible for going directly to the clients. They might have ten stores in our area or only one. They have the money to spend, so we talk to them about radio. Many clients have not used it because they have grown up using newspapers. It's our job to go in and show them the benefits of radio and why it can work for them.
My product line is pretty tedious and boring. We are supposed to push the kinds of things people are going to order over and over again, rather than a big ticket item that they'll buy once. That way you get more account security. I do sell the big ticket items too, but not as regularly.
I work for a large petroleum company, and I make calls with the marketing representative, so I am constantly in and around customers. But as district sales manager, I rarely ever deal directly with the customer without a marketing representative present; I'm in a supportive role.
We really have a good cross section of all classes of trade. A service station is pretty self-explanatory. A bulk plant buys wholesale and sells retail. We carry their accounts receivable, loan them certain equipment, and provide a number of services to them. A jobber also buys wholesale and sells retail. However they completely handle their own accounts receivable, transportation, and oftentimes own their own service stations. They perform the same marketing and transportation functions that a major oil company would. We loan them the use of our credit card and our logo and supply them with the product.
