My 4 months sales work

Posted by Emory on December 20, 2009

Sorry for the long disappearance, my sales job had taken most of my time to even make a proper blog post. Finally I have a little time to do this another long post since my previous one.

SUPER LONG POST!

First off, this post is all about my latest work in the sales department. Which involves me, A “Subscription Advisor”, a fancy name for Magazine Subscription Agent… or for short Salesman, selling magazine subscriptions to customers like Teachers, Lecturers, people with education and loves reading!

We had to go to schools, universities, colleges and maktab perguruan, we had to go inside these locations, sometimes it’s a bit hard because of security. Most schools and universities mostly ‘ban’ salesmen doing business. It’s pretty much hard to enter most areas. But if we are in luck, we might get into the teacher’s room or lecturer’s hall.

Mostly we have to work outstation. Right after a hard day of work, we stayed at locations so called Salesman’s House. This picture above is one of them. And the best one so far! This house is located in Ipoh.

Most salesman’s house is decent. But this one was newly renovated. Fresh, new and also comfortable to live at. It has most things, WiFi, fridge, microwave oven, LCD TVs, air conditioning, heater, DVD player, etc. It was superb!

But still, most things at this house is not for rent for one group only. Other salesmen also can book the rooms. Yes, we only rent one room. And also, the rate is RM25 per head!!! We had 4 people staying for 1 nights. Just imagine, instant RM100 for one night.

The room we stayed is pretty nice. Me and my friend stayed at the lower bunk of the room while my manager and my other friend stayed at the top bunk. Both areas has LCD Tvs!!! It’s worth the rent!

The outstation work was nice. I get to see many many different things, learn other people’s culture. Taste their food. talking about food… It has been a ride for my tastebuds!

This is very nice… It’s fried yong tofu! It’s super nice!!! It’s practically yong tofu fried and they have a variety of choices. It only cost RM6 for BOTH the Curry Noodle and also the fried yong tofu. As for the drink, it’s red bean + milk + ice. Expensive drink!!! Forgotten the price already.

I think one piece of the tofu was only RM0.50 if I not mistaken. The location of the restaurant is a bit hazy on my mind now. But people call it “Big Tree Head” (Dai Shu Tao) in Cantonese.

Penang food was also nice. I didn’t stay inside the island. The other side of the island, Butterworth. This plate of normal ‘LeeFah Noodle’ with Curry is an ULTIMATE match!! Sadly I don’t know how they made it. But it’s nice to eat.

This dish… Is absolutely hot… Despite it’s ‘cool’ colour, this rice is called Nasi Kerabu. It’s something like Salad + Rice + SomethingHotterThanWasabi. This thing is HOT!! Not to mention that Kota Bahru also having an extreme hot weather.

Calm places like these is always nice. But sometimes it’s a bit bothersome. No potential customers can be found at this area. We had a joke name for this area, FireFox Mountain. XD

Sometimes the weather at the mornings are a bit too cold for a person to work. It’s so calm that you sleep at the car even with enough sleep the previous night.

My spec was broken at the first week. A charger fell on it and broke one side of the lense. But it was replaced right before I went to Company ‘Training’ Camp. Just to know that during the bus ride to the location, my specs fell on top of my feet when I was asleep, when I got up… Crack… again… and got it fixed… again… =_______=…

On my first month, we had our first official team dinner. It was at a buffet Grill and Steamboat. That area serves the best lamb slices for grilling! They can lose the steamboat and only do the grill.

Back to my work… I’ve learnt a lot from these few customers that educates our nation’s future. There’s some good, and some bad. The good ones are mostly the most memorable advices I’ve heard so much. I try to work with pure honesty. But the bad parts are, some teachers are not what they look on the outside. They do judge people.

This is mostly the best excuses I heard so far from these teachers. No time, Internet is the next best thing, No money… blaa blaa blaaa…

Educators always tell us to read, but they don’t practice what they preach. They keep on passing excuses, and I quote that person’s saying: “I’ve read so much of these (textbooks) books. It’s enough already lah.” So this states that you are enough of learning? Enough of teaching? Then why bother keep going on educating the future?

Humans are selfish. So was I. I expected most educators of Malaysia are eager to learn, but somehow they are not. Well, I thought that the government implemented the internet in schools for teacher’s ease to find material to teach. But instead the teachers bring their laptops and online to plant trees, harvest their crops, asking other teachers to add you as friends… in Facebook…

Maybe it’s a stress relief for these teachers. Most companies ban these sites to improve productivity. Heck, my friend doesn’t even have internet access at his IT work!!! It was a WTF moment when I discovered that. Now I have a disturbed view of teachers already. I mean, they are still human.

Talking about human needs, food is mostly important. And another point to mention, I had a few healthy food and also some unhealthy food along the way. This meal above is nice. The portion is ‘controlled’. The rice is only a little amount, so as the chicken and the vegetable. But the soup is nice! So as the Honey Tea! The meal costs like RM7 while the drink is RM2.5

Some are up to my taste, but some, just not my cup of tea. This bowl of Fish “head” noodle is not really nice enough for me. Although there are also some fish meat, eating it is a bit troublesome. The fish bones just kills the enjoyment. My manager likes it… I just finds it a bit of a hassle.

Yo! My friend’s name on a store!

This is a mall in Kedah. It’s pretty empty at the noon time. Really empty… The mall is really big but no people on weekdays.

MyFC, A pretty much a local copy of KFC. I haven’t go there to have lunch. My manager didn’t want to put a risk.

This is an old place at Penang. This is Ong Cheng Huat Seafood Restaurant. This place was introduced at TV when we were working at Kedah. This place was said to be packed. And it IS!!!!!! The food is SUPER NICE! But the drinks, they have to knock it up a notch…

That is not a bottle of FnN Sarsi. It’s cooling tea…

The best of this seafood restaurant is not seafood. but this fish meat is smooth filled with flavour, and the fish taste is not that strong.

Just look at the meat…

This one… Don’t order if you go there… Basically they don’t have rice so they have an option of fried beehoon or fried (forgotten what that thing is… Highest chance it’s noodle)

This is crispy crackers. One of the best dishes I tasted.

Fried Tofu. Just like smooth smooth tofu fried. and not dried. That rhymed!

My plateful of tasty food. But this is not the hit dish at this area… and it’s not seafood also.

It’s chicken. This is not just any normal chicken. It’s small, young and also a virgin. Yes, you heard me… A virgin young chicken, deep fried…

The food is nice. It’s absolutely really nice to dine at the area but the environment can be improved a bit more. It’s packed like the whole town people enjoying the food there. They should invest more to make the area bigger. Okay, enough for the food… Back to my work.

Somehow people manage to follow rules in life. People set rules, become social norm. Conform with the normality of human beings. Follow the rules and live a mildly happy, stable, secure and also ever growing little problematic life.

People like being safe than sorry. Because if you go out of the box, it’s either you step on land, or you will fall down a pit, and climb up it… or die at the pit.

Because people didn’t think of much anymore. The guidelines are there set for you. I agree that sometimes people just moved on the wrong step. Some people move to the right one. But who can makes the best judgment? What is wrong and what is right?

People become defensive to what they want to protect, keep and also maintain it. They want to be safe on that. I too want to keep something for the long term. But somehow plans always obstruct you from getting it.

Sometimes we just need to cool down. I have lack of emotion control, I just don’t know how to control it. I don’t know how to cool myself down when I boil up. Maybe Ice is too common. Add some fruit, syrup, juice or a sweet topping, you get a nice desert. Smile and repress…

Time’s short… And I don’t have alot of time left. I’ve learnt alot this past 2 years. It’s time to start practicing, and continue learning.