2/8/2010 9:32:31 PM

evan fuck

2/8/2010 9:32:58 PM

oic

2/8/2010 9:32:58 PM

bahahaha

i noticed i had bruises in very odd places this morning

2/8/2010 9:42:08 PM

evan, even?
PS: someone forgot a HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY with that picture.

[Edited on February 8, 2010 at 9:43 PM. Reason : d]

2/8/2010 9:43:20 PM

I realize this thread is about those who were almost raped by a dog while drunk.... which I have. Hear me out, maybe I can offer some insight.

I am in outside sales, which is currently salary+commission, but will move into straight commission starting at the beginning of July 2010. I have been in this position since July 2009. I have competition from several direct manufacturing sales reps, large distributors, and local distributors. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of each:

Direct Advantages: Immediate knowledge of new technology, no middle man mark up, one shipping bill (paid by manufacturer or buyer of goods), access to larger range of non-commodity items, control inventory, have access to many distributors that can effectively sell their goods which increases market share, and set prices of commodity they manufacture.

Direct disadvantages: Typically have 1-3 sales reps per region (i.e. southeast, mid-atlantic, northeast, etc.) limiting the number of accounts they can successfully manage/cold-call, lack physical customer service or physical technical service available to or affordable for smaller users or altogether, are sometimes not trustworthy because they will go in behind their distributors that sell their commodity to one account in large quantities (i.e. they missed a big account, and have found out about it through a distributor selling their particular product) which leads to the distributor not selling their product anymore, have too many distributors selling the product ultimately driving the set price down through deviations, possibly rely on distributors to actually sell the product, and competition from other direct sources.

Large distributor advantages: have access to other commodities that go hand in hand with other manufacturers (poor example- grocery stores sell milk as well as cereal), get direct pricing, many locations regionally or nationally easing the shipping burden of buyers with multiple locations, personal service either customer or technical, many sales reps that are able to cover a broader territory, access to multiple manufacturers of the same commodity allowing to keep prices in check, service programs that smaller companies can't offer and direct providers can't match in price or value, and experts of many many commodities as opposed to one or a few.

Large distributor disadvantages: smaller local distributors creating price wars (think Michael Scott Paper Co vs Dunder-Mifflin), direct mfg's going in behind and stealing business, limited access to all of the mfg's (you won't find Harris Teeter name brands in Food Lion and visa versa), can't truly set prices because it's based on both supply and demand, territory management, and tough growth prospects in slower economies (this is true for direct as well really)

Local distributor advantages: Typically a good ol' boy setting where the seller and the buyer know each other for years (this does happen at all levels, but mostly at the local level), local folks are right down the street and can be used in emergencies, if the local guy buys at high enough volumes then there is no shipping charge to the end user, and access to both direct mfg's and large distributors.

Local distributor disadvantages: easily beaten in price, array of commodities, array of technology, lack of trained staff, low cash flow, etc etc etc.

This is what I have noticed in my six months, I am sure there are plenty more that need mentioning. The way I am setting myself apart as a sales person is this: I go after the big accounts right now while I am new. The big accounts, if I land them, will take care of me while I am new and building a customer base. The money made off of those allows me to focus free time on smaller accounts that get me higher margins. I build up big accounts, I would like to have 5-10 of these, then get 20-30 medium accounts. If I lose 1 or 2 big accounts, the 20-30 medium accounts keep me afloat while I go after new big accounts. I don't really waste time on small accounts simply because they basically pay for breakfast or something really small.

I will say this, if you can't get a big account in the first 6-8 months (assuming you have cash flow that you can ride this long) you could be in a world of trouble. If you can get one, it will really make going after the others a lot more enjoyable and less stressful. It's simply just very exhausting wasting any time on anything other than big accounts in the very beginning. You work just as hard on the medium sized accounts and see 1/3 to 1/36 of the money in my situation.

If you have any other questions, you can PM me. I hope this helps in the slightest!

2/8/2010 10:04:45 PM

Let me start out by saying that I'm one of those die-hard fans that has too much State paraphernalia and knows way too much about the history of our athletics. I do yell at games, but I don't make an ass out of myself. I just want to say that I am tired of waiting for us to put out a winner. I'm tired of the excuses. I understand the whole "let the coaches have enough time to build their program", but dammit how long do I have to wait?

GT hires Paul Johnson and what does he do in his first two years? Only win 9 games in his first year and win the ACC in his second. Now obviously GT was a solid program for a number of years as evident by their string of bowl appearances, but for a long time they weren't a program that was considered elite. Hell from 2002-2007 only once did they not finish with only 7 wins, which was the 2006 season where they won the Atlantic division in one of the weakest ACC seasons ever. Then you have Virginia, who has way less basketball history and passion than us, go off and hire Tony Bennett and they're tied for fucking first in the ACC right now after finishing 11th last year. It's not like they added a great recruiting class either. Hell even Dave Leitao, as much of a fuck-up that guy was, was able to take UVA to a first place finish in the regular season a couple of years ago.

Hell even when we were good (see the Rivers and latter half of the Sendek years) we weren't anything special. We never won the conference with Rivers and lost 4 straight to Maryland, despite how great he was. And with Sendek, with the exception of one year, we always barely snuck into the tournament and were guaranteed an early exit from the tournament, with Hodge's heroics in 05 being the lone exception. Seriously when are we going to be relevant? When is the massive amount of donations and facility upgrades gonna pay off? We've invested more than our fair share of money, tears, sweat, and blood (I've yelled so hard at games that I was coughing up blood afterwards) into this athletic department to not have it finally pay off.

Now I'm going to give Lowe and O'Brien the time that I think that they deserve, but the saddest thing is that if they fail and we end up having to get rid of them I have no confidence in our AD to be able to lure the right hire that will turn it around. The cycle will continue and we will be doomed to a life of not even being mediocre. What's sad is that we don't have any other sports to hang our hat on like UVA and some of the other schools have. We suck at everything. It hurts me to admit that our athletic department is the laughingstock of the ACC right now.

We must fire Fowler before we do anything. I truly believe that this atmosphere in our athletic department of accepting mediocrity is because of him. We need a change that will hopefully come with the new chancellor's hiring. Everyone on here wants to act like people around the country don't know anything about NC State and this is just not true. I've traveled a lot and live in Philadelphia now. When I tell people that I went to NC State, they know what school I'm talking about. They know we are located in Raleigh. They know we are the Wolfpack. They know we are in the ACC. There is no excuse for our ineptitude. We have the nicest basketball arena in the ACC and it is one of the nicest in the country. Our basketball practice facility is one of the nicest in the country. And our facilities for football are always voted the best in the ACC ( http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/football/notebook?page=notebook/signingdaypreview2010 ). We can and should be better.

2/8/2010 10:09:10 PM