How many salesmen do we have here?
 

How many salesmen do we have here? What do you sell? How's business for you these days?

I have sold photographic equipment, construction products, and most recently industrial laundry equipment.

Well I'm a counter salesman for a local electrical supply. Not outside sales just yet.

What company? How do you like it?

I sold my soul to Daniel Webster does that count?

I just "CLOSED" a deal with a girl in So Cal to extend this upcoming weekend into a long extended one, (there will be some shopping, but there may be some kissing, too?) with her down in Los Angeles and Orange County, so does that count? LOLZ

you will need an "extension" to close the deal

I do inside sales and play sales manager in my spare time selling all sorts of seed, fertilizer, golf and sports turf maintenance products (ie pesticides-herbi-, fungi-, insecti-), soil conditioners, garden and turf related hardware.

As one might imagine garden seed is hot these days. Plus we're gradually expanding west and south as the big boys continue to piss off the independent garden centers and hardware stores with their crappy service and willingness to sell to the big box stores for far less. I'm sold out of stuff already that I usually carry over for next year and it's not like you can fire up the seed making machine to spit out some more. That said, I've secured contracts for 2010 crops before the growers even came out with price lists.

Golf and sports turf is quiet. We're about 15% off from last year on the early order programs. A couple positives are the organic and all natural fertilizer products to the golf market and grass seed to municipalities (they can't use any pesticides around elementary and junior high schools any more -or any adjoining sports fields- so they are just going to continuously overseed the hell out of them all year long). Better profit margin but the dollar volume is less.

Wetland, wildflower and native mixes in general seem to be on an upward trend although they aren't high volume items for us just yet.

My brother brokers and sells bulk materials used in the landscaping business. The company that initially hired him forgot to have him sign a non-compete, so he bids against his own company to provide materials. When the company merged with a foreign owned international conglomerate, they asked him to sign a non-compete--he said no. So they keep him on anyway because he controls the largest territory on the East Coast and would have been able to take it when he left. When fuel went waaaay up, he was a little worried-as the margins are cents on the 18wheeler load. Now that fuel is cheap again, he is doing very well (high season for double hammered mulches, ect...for golf courses right now)

Hope they are aerating the hell out of them every time they overseed, or they'll be putting down neww turf in short order! (which I guess would be a good thing for you)

Are you kidding? With the cutback in manhours and budgets? :D It's tough enough getting them to follow healthy turf practices when things are going well, it can only go down from here. Ironically now is when those good practices in the past would be paying dividends when maintenance drops off.

You hate to wish ill on others, but dead (or at least very stressed) turf is good for business as long as it's not your fault. :o

Haha. Our club just resolved a criminal federal prosecution for having a large crew of undocumented workers. Got a deferred prosecution (for demonstration of 'good conduct') and $275K fine. Haven't seen an assessment yet, and am not on the board, but can't wait to find out who is going to take the rap, because it isn't going to be me. In addition to the fine and attorney's fees, I am sure 'good conduct' was expensive too (legitimate labor costs)--this for a pretty small club.

Get ready for long greens and a LOT more rough on that course. Maybe they'll let you play winter rules all year.:D

Its called Hill Country Electric Supply. I like pretty well. Selling 1/2" locknuts every day gets repetitive, but the quoting and then getting a big job is fun.

The silverbacks play winter rules all year anyway:D Not veddy likely to suffer any maintenance issues, I'm just curious where the blame will end up and how they'll slip it into an assessment to a bunch of people who didn't make a decision to hire 30 Mexicans. Isn't the club's first run in with the Feds over the last 80 years, and probably won't be the last:D

I sell auto detail services to auto dealers -- "whore" is a more appropriate term than salesman however. :rolleyes: