Anyone else in the same boat?

Kell

Before I start, I might as well prepare you and say that this is a serious moan.

I am working in IT sales at the moment and am finding business seriously difficult to pick up. I am just wondering if anyone else is in the same boat?

I have been let go twice in the last 24 months, once because the company cut half it's staff to stay afloat, and the second because the company couldn't afford to keep on a rep who after being one of two in the department to smash the shít out of their target in the first year, failed to hit target the first quarter of the second year. Hell, I even got a bottle of champagne for closing the biggest deal. Incidentally, same company couldn't afford to keep me on, yet current head engineer at 26 affords a house of his own and 2 cars one of which is a Ferrari. No shít, a fúcking Ferrari 355GT.

Anyways, the current job is selling software training courses in the usual back end systems from Sun, Microsoft rah rah, but do you think anyone wants them? Nah. Not only did the arse fall out of the IT sector, but one of the first things that went with it was training budgets (and entertainment).

Am I wrong in assuming that companies dont have the money to spend on anything at the moment? I would love to know how many companies are undergoing hardware/software refreshes at the moment as from my perspective, no-one is that I can see. Oh and added to that, the boss hasn't spent a penny on advertising, our website sucks ass for a company that is supposed to train people on how to do such things, so how the fúck are we supposed to get business?

So back to my original point, are there other people out there who are coming under same serious pressure to deliver on un-realistic targets without a hope of achieving them? Is it just me finding it seriously hard or are any others in the same boat? Oh bring me back to the pre 2001 days when loadsa companies had loadsa cash and wanted to spend it on anything that began with IT.

Cheers,

K-

scojones

Not really in the same boat per-say, but i'm in a neighbouring boat. I'm finding it very hard to find an IT job for this summer

WhiteWashMan

h mmmmm, thats quiet interesting.....

i have just spent over 10k on sun training. it would appear that you want my business!
and why did i do that, because i have to .
im a sun reseller.
i need to have accreditation.
i need my company to have accreditation.
to do that, i need a lot of people to do a lot of courses and exams.

you should try and target companies like that. build your relationships with the vendors, work with them.

moaning about someone else and how well they are doing within a company will do you no good. besides, he is in a completely different area. hes an engineer. hes technical. you are in sales.

if hes good at his job, why shouldnt he have a ferrari.
if you are good, you will have a ferrari.

its all well and good smashing you targets, but you also sound as if you havent manged your target or your leads or your pipeline.

by the way, the way to get business is not to sit on your bum and wait for people to phone you.
its up to you to go out and find leads.
if you dont agree, then you are in the wrong business to be honest.

business may be crap, but there are always people buing software and hardware.
i will give you a head start, try contacting all the sun and compaq and microsoft certified resellers.
they are the ones who will 'have' to have certified people, and these are the companies that 'have' to spend money on their work force. so you know there is going to be work there.

and in return, if you find anyone who wants to buy any hardware, point them in my direction

dazberry

I've friends the run a Training Company and things are very quiet - although not dead. They provide a number of forms of training, the IT training is very very quiet, and softskills area (i.e. word, excel etc) is dead.

Personally I had a brief flirtation with the IT industry (for 7 years ) and have found it very difficult to get any work since, i.e. I did 3 months IT work last year.

Oh bring me back to the pre 2001 days when loadsa companies had loadsa cash and wanted to spend it on anything that began with IT.

Well it was all a bit silly then. Any form of balanced recovery would be welcome, the only question is when...

D.

Kell

Originally posted by WhiteWashMan
by the way, the way to get business is not to sit on your bum and wait for people to phone you.
its up to you to go out and find leads.

I spend all day every day phoning people to tell them who we are and what we do and the answer is "Theres nothing happening at the moment". I wouldn't regard that as sitting on my arse waiting for the phone to ring.

Sun resellers (correct me if I am wrong) who want certification normally go through Suns main partner in Ireland for accreditation. Thats part of the problem as well. We dont run certification courses as the boss is convinced that the market has reached "certification fatigue" i.e. companies getting tired of employees looking for certification as a way to get more money out of their employer.

I've friends the run a Training Company and things are very quiet - although not dead.

We're not dead either, just extraordinarily quiet. It's helpful to know though that other people are in the same boat and it's not just me. When you consider that at least three technical training companies have gone out of business in the last 12 months it does make me wonder what the next twelve will be like.
For instance, we are practically giving some courses away free i.e. they are 1/4 of the cost of our competitors and few, very few are biting.

K-

Kell

Originally posted by WhiteWashMan
its all well and good smashing you targets, but you also sound as if you havent manged your target or your leads or your pipeline.

Said company has also benefited from €250k of margin since my departure that I did all the groundwork for. If thats not managing a pipeline, what is?

daveg

To approach your problem from a differnet angle I work in training and development for a large US multinational. There is little if not any budget for external training companies. We try to provide all training where possible with internal knowlage.

Not all mutlinationals would have the same poicy though.

Kell

I am finding the same with a lot of generic Irish companies too Dave. A lot of them have set up internal training departments and just use those.

I was speaking to one of our contract trainers at lunch and he said that things were in the doldrums from his perspective too. Our Sun trainer from the UK said same thing too a few months ago about the situation in the UK.

Ah well.

WhiteWashMan

kell,

sorry, i wasnt having a pop at you personally, i was just talking in the second person

i dont know what the training market is like, and you can only adapt to your market.
i work in the oil industry, and its all very based on relationship and value-add. price isnt always an issue.

with regards to training, i would be looking to develope relationships with MS and Sun and HP\compaq and trying to become their official training partners etc.
after all, if its their products you are selling (or at lest training in these products) then what better place start than with the companies themselves.
phoning individual companies is really a hit and miss thing.


by the way, if you dont run certification courses, what the hell do you run?

Kell

Originally posted by WhiteWashMan
sorry, i wasnt having a pop at you personally, i was just talking in the second person


by the way, if you dont run certification courses, what the hell do you run?

Difficult to not take it as a pop when all around people are taking a pop.

To quote the boss in relation to your second question "We like to give people as much skills as they need to perform specific tasks. If they want certification, they can do so off their own bat". Ye see, he's convinced that the people that pay for the training i.e middle management dont want their staff accredited so they dont have to pay them as much. Neither does he want to go the accredited partner route as he feels "why pay a vendor for partner status when we train people in various disciplines already without paying for the privelege".

We are already the Informix product and training partner in Ireland and he also doesn't want to rock that boat by teaming up with anyone else. Added to that he doesn't pro-actively advertise and as stated earlier our site sucks ass. I mean really badly. So badly in fact that I loathe giving people our web address as the information is 18 months out of date and still has some courses quoted in punts. It looks like a 12 year old designed it, but try and get this through to the boss? Nah. I know I am snookered here, but the recruitment market is in the toilet as well as moving about quite as much as I have done in three years doesnt make for good CV reading.

K-

sceptre

Originally posted by Kell
I loathe giving people our web address as the information is 18 months out of date and still has some courses quoted in punts. It looks like a 12 year old designed it

That's a real problem. If I was interested in buying a course from someone and had their mail address one of the first things I'd do is check out their site. A website like that and I'd probably be buying somewhere else.

marrakesh

agreed sceptre if a site looks cheap and unprofessional then there must be serious questions asked...

Kell

Originally posted by marrakesh
agreed sceptre if a site looks cheap and unprofessional then there must be serious questions asked...

Thats what I have been trying to tell the boss, but do you think he sits up and listens? Nah, sure what would I know?

K-

WhiteWashMan

if oyu feel that your performance is being hindered by someone or something then you should go above them and explain what you see is the problem.

senior managers are always happy to listen to someone who has some good well thought arguments and if you can offer them remedies that are concise and costed and will show how to benefit the company, you shouldnt have a problem.

at the very least, it will show that you are not some monkey, and that you should be considered in future.

Kell

Originally posted by WhiteWashMan
if oyu feel that your performance is being hindered by someone or something then you should go above them

Problem is that the person above me is the MD, owner and benevolent dictator. He's also my ex fiancées boss in a different capacity. There is no one else to speak to or get things actioned through.

I am well and truly stuck and theres nothing I can do save for leave. Maybe when the next "must have" job comes up.

K

WhiteWashMan

in that case sounds like a man who doesnt know his own business.

if you arent hitting your targets and nothing happens then fine, live with it.
if you get sacked, hey, at lest you can go somewhere better now

RicardoSmith

As far as i can see all IT companies are keeping a tight reign on their purse strings at the moment. The training sector was the fist to be hit and theres been a number of articles in the national press lately about the problems with the elearning for example. I reckon it will get tougher yet though unfortunately.

Evil Phil

I've been made reduntant twice in the last 24 months m'self. The second time it was purely a matter of salary. Mine was high so I got the chop.

The market is appaling at the moment but it will eventually improve (maybe 2 years though). Every industry has its hard time, this is the first of ours.