It's not that the sales cycle is very long. It can be, but it can also be very quick. I've had clients send in work within an hour of talking with them for the first time. But even so, that's small money in the beginning. No one sends in a $20k job the day after you meet with them. Some might start out with a $500 job here, a $1000 job the next month and book $30k over the year. Some gov't. clients will pay $50k in advance for a year's worth of service, but it could take months of contract BS to get to that point. In the last few days I've landed two new clients when they finally just this week responded to emails I sent them several months ago. They never answered my follow up emails or phone calls, just took my initial email, wrote back and said, "We want to send some work in this week. How can we sign up?" And of course, none of my efforts with those count for anything now that in-person meetings are all that matter until the monthly revenue goal is met. So it could look like I'm doing nothing for a month and then the business comes rolling in.

Well, it's not quite that bad. You might know that I generally dislike people, hate crowds and like to be alone. But I really do enjoy dealing with my customers and I excel at making the very angry ones (our billing dept. makes a lot of customers angry) into very happy ones. That's probably what I do best and my customers are pretty loyal to me, as in they don't want to talk to anyone else at my company. So when my numbers were good, which they were until I moved to AZ, I was totally immune from all the office Dilbert BS. I mean, it was scary how immune I was from it all because I was terrified at the thought my boss leaving and then my having to report to one of the Kool-Aid robots. I was a star at the old company before we got acquired by our biggest competitor and I have the same boss all along. He is very protective of his crew and so most of the company BS doesn't apply to our team. But about a year ago he started drinking the Kool-Aid and now recites the Orwellian Newspeak the rest of the company does. Luckily, I'm in AZ now and have only seen my boss twice in the last year. So the worst I get are the bad cop emails. He's always good cop on the phone. And besides, I have it pretty good. I work from home, live in a super house, look out my driveway at mountains and Saguaro Cactus everywhere, ride my motorcycle every day, have no commute, make enough to buy ammo and beer and, when I'm actually doing my job, which is contacting customers and prospects, I enjoy it. It could be a lot worse. My sister got laid off on Friday and she's in much worse shape than I am.

A classic.;)

Just booked a trip to Seattle for mid-Feb. to meet with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They are a big enough fish that they could do one project and cover my quota for the entire year. I hope I don't get yelled at for the whopping $271 airfare. I'm staying with my sister there and can use her car too. Somehow, I'm sure I'll be in trouble for excessive travel expenses.

Don't forget Seattle. Fly in to Sea-Tac, my office is at the terminal so I'd meet you in one of the lounges, buy you a beer and......there's one face-to-face meeting. Perhaps Jeff could swing by an buy you a beer.....bingo, another face-to-face. By the time we score your tenth face-to-face meeting, you'll be on your lips. We'll pour you back into the airplane and your work will be done for the week.

I probably won't be available February 14. I've got an important drilling job on that day that needs my personal attention.

So do I, but it will be with a female.:)

Oh, it gets better now. Just saw my revenue quota and commission schedule for 2009. Mind you, we've all been warned of dire consequences for being below quota in any given month. Get this - we start getting commissions on revenue at 70% of quota. I get something like 11.5% and then at 100% of quota I get another 10%. So we get rewarded with commissions at a percentage of goal that will also earn us double secret probation or disciplinary action. Unreal. But I'll take it.

Ummmm......you might be suffering from one or more misimpressions of me. I'm in the same drilling market as you, Rick. We really need to have that beer, I think. I'll wear my prettiest skirt.:D

If it's around 18 to 20 Feb. I'll be in Seattle as well. What are you actually selling? I might be able to hook you up with a few folks.

I'm there Feb. 10-13th. Main product is wire distribution of press releases, but also multimedia news releases, photo distribution and news monitoring. I deal mainly with gov't. agencies, non-profits, political orgs. and the like.

Sorry. But that's out of my area entirely. Good luck though.