I knew that headline would get some people's attention. No, it's not a joke. Anyone who knows me, knows that I have had a difficult time finding qualified Porsche & BMW sales people to:
1- Man the phones
2- Show up on time
3- Be reliable
4- Know what their talking about
5- Be able to commute to our El Segundo Location
With that in mind, I've decided to embark on a program to outsource our sales department - to India (just kidding, how about Indiana).
Seriously, I have been testing technology at my home office which creates a VPN (Virtual Private Network) with my home to the shop. Using a variety of high-tech gear, this has allowed me to use a standard PBX phone which seamlessly integrates with our phone system, and a standard computer terminal to interface with our computer systems. Thus, you can be located in your house in New England, and your computer and phone would effectively be as if you were located here in an office in El Segundo. I'm still working on the phone voice quality, but it looks like the plan will work well.
I'm looking for people who might be interested in a program like this. Each and every time I've posted job offerings on this site, I've gotten flooded with emails that ask for a telecommuting job. Now, I think I may have a solution. Keep in mind, that I would be looking for super-top notch people with Porsche knowledge (BMW knowledge is a HUGE plus). A large post count on the BBS wouldn't be bad either.
This remote salesperson would be either paid on salary or commission or a combination of both. I have not worked out or calculated the details quite yet.
The advantages are huge. No office infrastructure. No high California operating costs. We can have East Coast salesreps man the phones early in the morning for the Atlantic crowd, and the people calling from Europe. For the salesrep, the advantages are huge. You can work from home in your PJs. No commuting. More time with wifey and family, etc. If your sales numbers are good, and your feedback surveys are good, then that's all I care about.
In a nutshell, this idea seems like the best of both worlds both for me, and the potential salesrep. I would also be interested in people working commission, surfing the web boards, helping people with parts purchases, for which they get credit. Salary would be based mostly on performance. Overall, the whole plan seems like a win-win plan for me.
The timeframe on this? I would like to deploy at least one salesrep out on the East Coast within the next six months. I'm looking for people who are interested in potentially trying this. You have to be qualified of course, and we would bring you into LA for 2-3 weeks to train you on our systems and our procedures prior to setting you up. I'm not prepared to act right away, but I would like to be talking to a few potential candidates over the next few months.
I expect that interest will be big in this plan, based on the number of people who have contacted me in the past about working remotely for us. In addition to qualified people, I also need people who are willing to take a chance on this - it's a new pilot program and it may not work out exactly as planned (may fall prey to technology glitches, or other problems). However, I'm tossing this out to see who may be interested in the near future. I do have one friend of mine who may be a good first candidate, but he is at a pretty good job right now with super A+ benefits that his wife may not want him to jettison.
Anyways, if this sounds interesting, it's best to drop me a line at
wayne@pelicanparts.com and let me know. I usually have a 24-48 response time on emails...
-Wayne