Quote:
Originally Posted by westopher
This thread is relevant to my interests.
I too am thinking about getting into a sales job, albeit, also at a small paycut. My reasoning is from the same place. I come home very stressed and unhappy often. I’m very passionate about what I do, and very proud of it and certainly won’t feel the same after the change, however, I’m inundated with stress all day, every day, as it’s so volatile with staffing, profit margins, etc.
I don’t think sales will be a breeze, but I’d be stepping into accounts that exist and trying to grow them, which I think won’t be all that difficult being that it’s products I know lots about, and most often am quite passionate about.
Not being the boss will be very difficult for me, however, will take a massive chunk of stress off.
Lots of good advice so far in this thread. I’m not the sole breadwinner, as me and my wife make approximately the same, however I’d be willing to take less at the possibility of being more pleasant to be around for my wife and daughter. That said, being that I run things, it’s also on me that work is stressful to a point. I need to decide if I have the skill and tools at my disposal to make it easier.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by westopher
That’s the difference. You work a shit job and get to buy a house, a new car every 5 years, vacation to Hawaii every year, have ZERO emails, texts, etc to answer when you go home from your 9-5 that’s a very different lifestyle than being expected to answer whenever someone needs it, knowing full well you can’t move into a bigger home unless mom and dad give you hundreds of grand towards it.
Fuck the desire to bust ass to scrape by. If it’s just going to go OK financially, why expect someone to commit their existence to it.
It’s not about being softer, it’s about being smarter.
That said, as long as I get sundays off for cars and coffee, get me the training to be your gantry operator for 6 figures and a 4 day work week and I’m there.
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Sales manager with 20+ years of experience chiming in.. I’ve dealt with the stress of managing/being held accountable for plenty of direct reports across multiple branches expected to exceed targets while balancing P+L, hiring/firing, scheduling, training, inventory etc. it does take a toll on you.
The stress will be different but the pressure to perform in sales is real. Especially if you’re looking to join a large corporation. My mood at home has also been impacted depending on how well the month/quarter is going or if I lost a major project to a competitor to the point where now I focus a lot more on my family and have told my boss straight up that I’m not prioritizing work first as I had in my 20’s and 30’s to get where I am today. Now I make a point to help pack lunches, get the kids off to school etc. before working out for my own personal well being. Then I’ll hit the desk by 9AM, don’t know what a lunch break is and find myself replying to emails as late as 10-11PM at times. So if you think that will stop, it won’t, unless you can completely unplug and keep your phone separate from work. I don’t always have to reply so late, but often choose to because it’ll be one less thing to deal with tomorrow. The work never ends for me so if I can reply quickly and take one more thing off my plate I’ll do it.
^I do this around home when I’m not travelling for work by the way.. I also have expectations to visit clients outside of the lower mainland as often as I can. Then we’re not talking too many hours away from the family in a day, it’s always several days if not the whole week that I’ll be away.
Managing and looking to grow existing accounts is not as easy as you might think as well. Having confidence in your ability is great, but even if you’re the best at what you do, your clients can choose other products for reasons x, y and z. Even if they’d prefer to give you the business, sometimes they just can’t based on variables such as budget, needs etc. and while you still need to spend time to fight for that business, you also have to accept when it doesn’t go your way.
All that said and despite not knowing what your current opportunity is, the chef life isn’t easy with the ridiculous hours involved and it seems you’d benefit from taking a break from that overall stress. FWIW, I say go for it as it seems there isn’t a lot of risk overall financially if you did.
Also, if you ever need advice from a sales perspective, I’m a PM away.
