New Job - Old Pet Peeves

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted a blog, um, post, but I've been busy. And when I haven't been busy, I've been tired. On May first I started a new job in, what I thought was supposed to be, sales. I interviewed for a sales job and expressed my sales background. Turns out, only about 30% of the position will be sales related; the rest will be project management and that's why my official title is Project Manager.

This wouldn't be so hard except for the fact that this company keeps withholding information from me. Not trade secrets, mind you, but rather their sales process, details about what they sell and how they implement the entire process. I've had numerous talks with the senior leadership - that is, the company founder and owner, the construction manager and the sales manager - about this lack of training and how it's kept me from feeling comfortable talking about the products and services while in the field and aside from the construction manager, of all people, I've been told to "deal with it." Maybe not in such harsh terms, but the responses I've typically been receiving have been some variation thereof.

In other words, it's a sink or swim environment.

But how can I sell a product if I don't know the most basic information about the product, it's competition in the market and it's place among that competition? What competitive advantages does the product or company extol? What are the typical time frames between contract signing and project completion along with final payment? How does the process fit from lead generation all the way through CAP (completion and payment)?

None of these questions were answered in the first three training sessions and the training manager (ie: sales manager) often left me adrift as he ran off to close his own sales - his mantra being, "I'm out hunting whales." Well, Mr. Sales Manager, that's great, but I'm still learning the industry, I need to learn how to hook a tuna.

I was able to make a half a dozen sales so far and they've more or less moved from the sales stage to the opening salvos of the project management stage, which is good, but I have no idea aside from a handful of idle comments what that stage looks like and it's completely frustrating.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I don't like walking blindly through the forest. I need all the information I can gather and a plan of action. It's the only way to ensure a smooth operation from A to Z, or Prospect to CAP.

Thus far I've been excusing a lot of the behavior of this company as it being in start-up phase even though it's about two and a half years old. They indicated that most of the team was hired within the few weeks I was and last year they ran on four or 5 people total, but still -  I've been a manager before, you have to have your shit together. You can't just wing it and expect everyone to catch up at their own pace. In my experience, your employees need the tools and the confidence to function in a top notch manner if they are to succeed, not answers of, "You'll figure it out." Especially, since this is a new field for me.

That's right, I came into this field with exactly zero knowledge and let them know I had no such knowledge during the interview process. It didn't seem to matter to the owner or his sales manager and there are benefits to the position that I weighed against my ignorance upon debating if this was the right move for me.

I think I have a handle on some of it, so far. I can't help but wonder, though, how far along I'd be if their training had been competent. As it is, I still walk up to prospects with doubt and uncertainty and if you know me at all, you know those feelings aren't in my nature. Therefore I'm incredibly annoyed with the entire process so far.

But, I have to keep reminding myself: this is swimming upstream. I'll be stronger and wiser for it.

I hope.

[PS: I'm going to go ahead and post this today just because it's been a couple of weeks since I've written instead of waiting until Thursday like I normally do.]