Give me any odds of what you think chicken is.

Let's do something large.

Let's do something like....

"There's a 1 out of 1x10^10 chance."

That means there's a one in ten billion chance of aliens existing.

Is that not rare enough for you? Okay. Let's do 1 out of 1x10^15. That's a one in one quadrillion chance.

Based on observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, there are at least 125 billion galaxies in the universe.

It is estimated that at least ten percent of all sun-like stars have a system of planets, there are 6.25×10^18 stars with planets orbiting them in the universe.

If even a billionth of these stars have planets supporting life, there are some 6.25×10^9 (billion) life-supporting planetary systems in the universe.

6,250,000,000.

Now, what are the odds that NONE of these have any life on them?

5/7/2010 1:38:21 AM

NCSU is not the funniest college. not by a long shot. aside from a few exceptions like TWW, NC State is seriously lacking in any kind of cleverness, wit, or humor.

I would be embarrassed if we skewed a vote and got the title of "funniest college" because then the rest of the nation would come looking at us to do something funny. and the dimwitted dickshits and fratbois that make up 90% of the NCSU student body would be all like "durr......"

NCSU isnt known for goddamned anything, except three things: engineering, veterinary, and jimmy v. and none of that shit is funny. that's just the way it is. our fucking campus is landscaped with 2 million red bricks for chrissakes.

finally, any jerkoff with 19 posts who comes around here calling people "faggots" ... well that aint funny or clever or even remotely original. and what kind of fairy cocksucking name is "faithplusone" anyhow? that sounds like somethign someone's goddamned grandmother would come up with.

take that weak shit and get the fuck on out of here.

5/7/2010 1:38:45 AM

I realize this thread is about chicken.... which I am not. 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!

5/7/2010 1:39:15 AM