I was wondering, when looking on another thread about people how do a lot miles for work, say 50k, how does it pay for them to do such miles? They must spend most of the day in the car, leaving them little time to 'add valve' to their day. It must work otherwise companies wouldn't do it but can someone give some examples? Are they all selling million pound machines?
Having never worked in a office or ever had anything to do with sales/marketing it leaves me with a narrow idea of life insurance salesman or people wizzing about with carpet samples in the boot!
Thanks :)
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I have an interest in a company that employs three 'salesmen'. We sell software to local authorities and have moved from a phone based contact system to personal visits. Even with someone based in Manchester and covering the authorities from the West Midlands to the Border and visiting each one just once a year can easily rack up 30,000 miles without blinking.
Is it worth it? Yes - sales and renewals are far better with a personal visit than a chat on the phone.
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With planning, say you can get 3 visits a day
leave home at 8 arrive client1 10:00 (100 miles)
Leave client1 11:00 arrive client2 12:00 (30 miles)
leave client2 14:00 (longer cos you had lunch with them) arrive client 3 15:00 (30 miles)
Leave client 3 16:00 arrive home 18:00 (100 miles)
15 calls a week, 1300 miles a week, over 50k a year (depending on your vacation and public holidays)
As Espada says, when it comes to proper sales a visit is worth 10 phone calls. When you get to lower value sales with less margin then yes you cut your cost of sales. But with sales of 20/30k each and upwards then pressing flesh is best.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 23 Dec 10 at 16:21
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Can't speak for reps and the like, but I was doing 35-40k as an ADI and nearly every one of those was paid for by the client.
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I do a reasonable amount of driving through my Job - I work in a Procurement role, and can achieve far more through visiting suppliers than I do on the phone. Its worth it for me.
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>> I do a reasonable amount of driving through my Job - I work in a
>> Procurement role, and can achieve far more through visiting suppliers than I do on the
>> phone. Its worth it for me.
>>
Do tell us oldies more :-)
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>> >>
>> Do tell us oldies more :-)
>>
What would you like to know?
Last edited by: mikeyb on Thu 23 Dec 10 at 17:06
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I remember once we had a procurement man in.
His bonus for the year was to be paid on a 15% across the board saving in contract costs.
He insisted on a meeting with us, arrived and said. "You are to reduce the price of your service to us by 15% or we will seek other providers"
"Certainly" we said. "No problem here is a contract notification, terminating the service in 6 weeks"
It was a badly priced contract, we were making a 5% loss on it. Alas he never signed and we never saw him again.
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wasn't working for tesco's was he ?
They are known to squeeze all of their suppliers and we are all mug enough to buy from them.
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Funny enough, he was new to the company and lived in Cheshunt.
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>> wasn't working for tesco's was he ?
>>
>> They are known to squeeze all of their suppliers and we are all mug enough
>> to buy from them.
>>
M&S used to do the same so far as I could see, indeed I wonder if there are any that don't.
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I know a flower grower in Holland who has a contract with Tesco - they tell him what they are going to sell the flowers at and what they are going to give him, it's up to him to make it pay. It works, up to a point, but apparently they do rather screw him from time to time - he is contracted to provide so has to when costs are high as well as low. That's business I suppose.
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>> They are known to squeeze all of their suppliers and we are all mug enough
>> to buy from them.
Not all of us, i wouldn't give them the time of day.
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They sell watches as well if you need one.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 23 Dec 10 at 20:12
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>> I remember once we had a procurement man in.
>>
>> His bonus for the year was to be paid on a 15% across the board
>> saving in contract costs.
>>
>> He insisted on a meeting with us, arrived and said. "You are to reduce the
>> price of your service to us by 15% or we will seek other providers"
>>
>> "Certainly" we said. "No problem here is a contract notification, terminating the service in 6
>> weeks"
>>
>> It was a badly priced contract, we were making a 5% loss on it. Alas
>> he never signed and we never saw him again.
>>
Not my type of Procurement. More based around life of programe (Aerospace) and long term relationships. No benefit to me in screwing a supplier as I want them to be in it for the long term, and if they dont make any money then they have no cash for investing if future work packages
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>> >> Do tell us oldies more :-)
>> >>
>>
>> What would you like to know?
>>
Dont think the mods would allow the answers :-0)
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>>With planning, say you can get 3 visits a day
>>leave home at 8 arrive client1 10:00 (100 miles)
>>Leave client1 11:00 arrive client2 12:00 (30 miles)
>>leave client2 14:00 (longer cos you had lunch with them) arrive client 3 15:00 (30 miles)
>>Leave client 3 16:00 arrive home 18:00 (100 miles)
>>15 calls a week, 1300 miles a week, over 50k a year (depending on your vacation and public holidays)
This is true in theory, Zeddo, but let's be honest, most travelling salespeople only do this regime 3 days/week. Monday is in the office and Friday ahem "working from home"...
30,000 miles/year must be achievable in some countries, but with the overcrowding on UK roads how many sales reps now take well over 2 hours to make that 100 mile journey, so meeting 2 gets rescheduled and meeting 3 cancelled?!
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well you still see plenty of 100k miles over two years rep mobiles going through the auctions, so someone is doing it.
Its actually easy to do. I used to do it.
Yes your right about the three days, of course. All those sales meetings and sales plans to go over down the pub.
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We had an IT contractor who was commuting from beyond Bath to Hounslow five days every week.
In theory a blast up and down the M4 but with the sun in your eyes for quite a few trips.
It was done in a comfortable larger company car which I guess eased the pain.
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For many (non-sales)people these days, I'm pretty sure the daily commute to the office will rack up to 24k miles/year. Add on the weekend pootering and the annual 3k schlep to France/Spain and back and 30,000 miles/year is easily on the clock!
That said, the person who racks up 50,000 miles in a year must spend an awful lot of time behind the wheel; can't be healthy long-term.
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Mr F senior covered 150K in just under three years as a contracts manager in the mid 80s. He didn't find it a problem as the journeys were usually in large chunks such as lake district or scotland to surrey or similar.
My working periods of higher mileages were lots of shorter local runs which seemed quite wearing once the work element exceeded 30K.
My current *semi-retirement* mileage of around 15K seems about right.
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Thanks for that, I thought it must pay somehow.
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High milers - Netsur
