MY VERY OWN TERRITORY

There were a number of things about my new job/company that were first class.

The first plus was to have my exclusive sales territory. Wow! No one could sell in there but me. The territory included a large portion of downtown Philadelphia and a very large portion of Southern New jersey that included five counties and the city of Camden. The cities would demand most of my time because of the concentration of prospects. Less time would be spent in the rural counties because of fewer prospects, but required critical planning because of time spent traveling between towns.

The second plus was the amount of training I received. Every week there was a training meeting, usually in the evening, at which time each salesman was involved in role-playing, taking turns playing Mr. Prospect to the calling salesman. It was lots of fun and at the same time, a learning experience.

The third plus was my compensation plan, which was a challenging one. It consisted of a monthly draw of $400.00 against commission. If your commission for the month totaled $300.00, you owed the company the difference which you were expected to make up the following month. This was the incentive to increase your calls per month, knowing that the more calls you made, the better your chances for sales.

More, later.