![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Day/Learning
Aug. 27th, 2002 07:15 pmTravelling day, spent in Modesto. On the road by 8, back home at 5:30, and everything in between work. Yes please, I'd like that paycheck,thank you. What? NEGATIVE COMMISSIONS?
Wow, that's a first. Of course, it hurts the direct sales guys more (who can make big bucks in technical sales without being the engineer, by absorbing the pressure) but I don't have much sympathy for them.
However, my coworker, whom I shall name Zippy for this chronicle, pointed out something very interesting. Companies report results in a "pro forma" basis, rather than GAAP. That is, the results are shown as revenue recognized-expenses, which seems pretty straightforward, given the fairly tight definition of "recognized", which means they gotta pay it and their credit is good and the deal isn't too funky. (BTW: The money is in sales because they hunt it down. More on hunters later.) BUT IT'S NOT THE TRUTH! Especially in hard times, the deals get all sorts of additional requirements, buyback clauses, enhancement requests, free professional services...and these things, which cost money, are not shown in the pro-forma earnings. So yes, you can really ship a customer a broken or wrong piece of equipment, knowingly, as long as that lets you log the revenue so the numbers are good.
Ah. So, when you go look at the real numbers (which you can for any publicly traded company--still working on how, though it can't be hard) you see the real earnings, especially in the P/E ration (Price/Earnings?). If it's N/A, then the company lost money.
The company I work for has had no P/E for two years...yet the management tells us the numbers are OK.
Hmmm.
Hunters: Pre-sales activities are hunters: find a mammoth, kill it, bring it back. OF course,that means making spears (marketing materials), scouting the land (outbound marketing) bringing back herbs to attract mammoths and learning mammoth love calls (inbound marketing), throwing rocks from cliffs and listening for mammoth yelps (cold calling) and actually running down mammoth are are pre-sales activities. Well, you hope for mammoth, but if you get vole or hamster you take it. Farmers: Post Sales activities are farmers: go back to the kill site, dig around a bit, plant some ideas, slowly harvest what grows. The trick is to balance them when the clan cheifs want lots and lots of mammoths.
Thus the predatory tactics of sales...
And negative commissions. Commissions are pay based on sales numbers. But you've got a big bunch of hungry hunters here, and in the abscence of a lot of meat, they squabble over the little bits (all right, they squabble over all of them.) (always. That's why their weasles; easiest to get meat that way...really, in sales, only the number, always the number, nothing but the number, hero or zero.) So, if someone else convinces the shamans in management that they deserve part of that badger there (they got an arrow into it, it fell dead outside their cave, you're not allowed to hunt in the swimming pool anyway) OR the customer takes the sale back (miraculous! dismal.) Then the numbers get adjusted, and if the adjustments are larger than the food you've brought in, it means negative commissions.
HEY, at least it's not real, as in I would have to give up flesh and blood.
FLESH AND BLOOD:
Bkfst: 7:20 CMD shake, vitamin
Snack: 9:40 2/5 bar
Lunch: 12:35 2 DC, slice bread, mango chicken salad (2 veg, 1 fruit, 1 1/2 meat, dressing)
Dinner: 7. EAS shake (more protien, less fat) handful dried fruid.
lost the other 3/5 of the bar, drats.
Wow, that's a first. Of course, it hurts the direct sales guys more (who can make big bucks in technical sales without being the engineer, by absorbing the pressure) but I don't have much sympathy for them.
However, my coworker, whom I shall name Zippy for this chronicle, pointed out something very interesting. Companies report results in a "pro forma" basis, rather than GAAP. That is, the results are shown as revenue recognized-expenses, which seems pretty straightforward, given the fairly tight definition of "recognized", which means they gotta pay it and their credit is good and the deal isn't too funky. (BTW: The money is in sales because they hunt it down. More on hunters later.) BUT IT'S NOT THE TRUTH! Especially in hard times, the deals get all sorts of additional requirements, buyback clauses, enhancement requests, free professional services...and these things, which cost money, are not shown in the pro-forma earnings. So yes, you can really ship a customer a broken or wrong piece of equipment, knowingly, as long as that lets you log the revenue so the numbers are good.
Ah. So, when you go look at the real numbers (which you can for any publicly traded company--still working on how, though it can't be hard) you see the real earnings, especially in the P/E ration (Price/Earnings?). If it's N/A, then the company lost money.
The company I work for has had no P/E for two years...yet the management tells us the numbers are OK.
Hmmm.
Hunters: Pre-sales activities are hunters: find a mammoth, kill it, bring it back. OF course,that means making spears (marketing materials), scouting the land (outbound marketing) bringing back herbs to attract mammoths and learning mammoth love calls (inbound marketing), throwing rocks from cliffs and listening for mammoth yelps (cold calling) and actually running down mammoth are are pre-sales activities. Well, you hope for mammoth, but if you get vole or hamster you take it. Farmers: Post Sales activities are farmers: go back to the kill site, dig around a bit, plant some ideas, slowly harvest what grows. The trick is to balance them when the clan cheifs want lots and lots of mammoths.
Thus the predatory tactics of sales...
And negative commissions. Commissions are pay based on sales numbers. But you've got a big bunch of hungry hunters here, and in the abscence of a lot of meat, they squabble over the little bits (all right, they squabble over all of them.) (always. That's why their weasles; easiest to get meat that way...really, in sales, only the number, always the number, nothing but the number, hero or zero.) So, if someone else convinces the shamans in management that they deserve part of that badger there (they got an arrow into it, it fell dead outside their cave, you're not allowed to hunt in the swimming pool anyway) OR the customer takes the sale back (miraculous! dismal.) Then the numbers get adjusted, and if the adjustments are larger than the food you've brought in, it means negative commissions.
HEY, at least it's not real, as in I would have to give up flesh and blood.
FLESH AND BLOOD:
Bkfst: 7:20 CMD shake, vitamin
Snack: 9:40 2/5 bar
Lunch: 12:35 2 DC, slice bread, mango chicken salad (2 veg, 1 fruit, 1 1/2 meat, dressing)
Dinner: 7. EAS shake (more protien, less fat) handful dried fruid.
lost the other 3/5 of the bar, drats.
