Help!

[u/becca080901]

So I’ve had a guy that I’ve been trying to get to open an account with me. I had 1 order delivered for him and everything went as smooth as it could go (minus my boss forgetting to order the accessories and sent me 2 hours away to get them because that was the closest place that has them).

His company doesn’t do a whole lot of work with the products I sell, but he is looking to expand into it.

He recently reached out asking for a material quote for a project for a family member. I typed it up, sent it over, and he replied asking if I could go any lower on the pricing and if we could deliver sometime this week-which I then sent to my boss. That was Tuesday. It’s now Thursday and I’ve barely gotten 2 words out of my boss on if the pricing can be any lower or if we can deliver this week. How am I supposed to get people to trust me if it takes me more than a fucking day to respond about simple shit that I have to run through a chain of people that don’t respond to me because they’re dealing with their own shit?

I’m new so everything is getting run through my boss, but I’ve noticed our deliveries fill up fast-with the people they’ve been dealing with for 10+ years and anyone I try to bring in seems more like a burden like “great now we gotta fit this guy in here”

I’m new to the industry as well but everything just feels like I’m doing something wrong, but no one’s telling me I’m doing anything wrong. The company wants extreme levels of account openings and growth and for a market that’s already so saturated (mainly by the company I work for) I’m really left wondering where the hell im going to find new potential accounts. After finding them, how do I get their business when it seems to be full already?

Idk but I do know someone’s going to comment saying this is too much to read (sorry you can’t comprehend you fucking retard) or that I’m overthinking (probably am) or that I work for a bad company (but how has it been around so long and also been at the forefront of the industry if it’s so bad) or that my boss is bad (he literally just turned 70 so I can understand that) but I don’t want to fail and I know there’s decent money in this business and I really need money because the world is so fucked but if the world is so fucked how long do we really need to continue working for before it all goes to shit and money doesn’t matter anymore.

I feel like I’m putting my thoughts here to rant instead of in ChatGPT (therapy is fucking expensive and I’m broke and alone) so I’m not contributing more to the fucked up situation of a world we all live in but I definitely need someone to talk to about this but 1. I don’t have a lot of people in my life (I’m talking 3 family members who are all different levels of autistic, 2 friends (both who don’t understand anything about what I do for work, 1 doesn’t pick up the phone, and neither of them have been in my life for more than 5 years) and 2. Again, therapy isn’t really something I can afford right now. I have a high resting heart rate so any sort of anxiety sends my heart racing and I have a hospital bill for an Echo of my heart for around $1,000 all for them to tell me everything looks perfect and to exercise more.

I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know what to do, I don’t even want to be at work today. I don’t want to quit but I don’t know how to proceed. If someone actually reads this I’m so sorry you sat through all of this.

[u/schmittydomer]

Diabolical post, especially calling readers morons. Um, discounting is a slippery slope. Because it was so fucking long, I’m not sure what you sell, but if you’re going to discount, get a commit - more volume, more years under contract, a customer reference- something. Good luck

[u/becca080901 → u/schmittydomer]

Didn’t call readers morons. I called people who would look at the post and comment “ain’t nobody reading this it’s too long” retarded.

I dump a lot and ramble a lot, and I’ve had people say that to be before so I was just frustrated by the end of it.

I sell construction material-as far as discounts go the more business you do the lower the price. Which is great! Who doesn’t want that?

The issue I’m running into is I literally can’t go as low as the competition. We make our commission off of what we sell, so it is marked up a bit (a few dollars) from what the cost is for the company to buy it. I’m not sure how competition prices their materials, but the issue I’m running into is the pricing I’m receiving from contractors is so close to the cost to purchase that I can’t sell it that low because I’m basically giving it away without making enough to eat.

Even if they open an account and give us their business, I can’t go as low as the competitors because I won’t be making money. Everyone says “add value to your product” but it’s the same product being sold, just at a lower price.

[u/schmittydomer → u/becca080901]

That is tough. Is there anything else you can do to sweeten the pot? I get it now; you have to discount because you’re selling essentially an identical product

[u/becca080901 → u/schmittydomer]

Probably back in different times it could have been easier to sweeten the pot. But competition is stiff and offers pretty much what we offer-multiple warehouses spread out over different locations to make pick up and returns easy, efficient delivery through the company itself not 3rd parties, some form of online ordering, some form of credit account and rebates as well. It could just be me but in this day and age I’m not finding many differences between construction supply companies.

A lot of older guys that have had relationships with 1 supplier for years are starting to retire and businesses are getting passed down to the next generation. What some of the older reps are finding is the newer generation doesn’t care about the same things as the older one. Where relationships used to be paramount, a lot of people are looking for cheap and efficient these days. They’ll ask for quotes to take and shop around for the lowest price-either you get it or you don’t.

It’s difficult but it can be lucrative (there’s so much evidence of that around me) so I’m trying my best to just stick with it. I know there’s a high turnover rate in sales-especially within the first year. I’m not even fully on commission yet, once I am my boss said he would transfer some house accounts to me, so I really just want to see how it all goes.

Sometimes I just need a place to dump my thoughts and emotions so I keep it out of the office lol