Have a sense of humor about team partiers
Dear J.T. & DALE: I went on my first business trip with my company. It turns out they LOVE to party. They expect you to stay out late, sleep four hours, then knock the client presentation out of the park. I am not a big partier and definitely don’t do well on a lack of sleep. I’ll travel with them at least once each month. Advice?
– Richard
J.T: I think before you go on
Talk Jobs the next business trip, you
J.T. O’donnell &
Dale Dauten should confide
in your boss that you don’t think you can keep up with the agenda on business trips. I’m sure your manager will reassure you. The bigger question is: Is this the type of culture you want to be a part of, long term? You may find, over time, that it wears on you. You don’t want to resent your employer. If this type of behavior doesn’t sync with your values and beliefs, it could wear you down and eventually undermine your relationship with the company.
DALE: OK, but getting resentful and mistrustful of your employer is a choice. The bigger danger is being mistrusted by your merrymaking new colleagues; that’s going to happen if you seem to be critical of their culture. However, there’s a way you can keep sane hours and still be embraced by the team: Have a sense of humor about the situation. You tell them with a chuckle and a grin that you wish you had their stamina, but you don’t, and further, you need to be at your best with the client. That way, they see that you’re not criticizing them; no, you’re envying them while insisting on being a great teammate. If they good-naturedly tease you about it, that’s your victory — you’re one of them without staying up with them.
Dear J.T. & Dale: My partner and I have been working in business development at a tech startup. We have produced contracts with new clients valued at $5 million per year. The next-highest amount by anyone else is $500,000. We are frustrated that we are not being paid commensurate with our production, especially when others are taking raises. (We are considered “part-time,” and make about $40,000 between us in a high-cost city.) We want full-time compensation. Our boss’s response: “We don’t have any new positions available.” Do we give an ultimatum? – Elyse
J.T.: If you are bringing in $5 million per year, then you should have gone in when those deals were done and said you will not continue to work until you are given more money.
DALE: Even that would have been too late; ideally, you get agreement on compensation or commissions before inking the deal. But now, going forward, the first thing to do is figure out how your management views business development. Some execs regard sales as the engine of the company’s success. (I appreciate the motto “Nothing happens in business until somebody sells something.”) However, other execs regard sales as little more than order-taking, a step above a server in a restaurant. Given the response to your request for a new deal, I’m guessing your management is in the latter group, believing that something besides you — perhaps their marketing or innovation — is bringing in the new customers. You can see how that belief would affect your leverage.
J.T.: Further, is going in and saying nobody else is as successful as you two the right way to get a new arrangement? I think you would be better off explaining that you can’t survive and thrive without a better deal. Humility and asking for their help will be better received than admonishing them. Even so, I’d have a backup plan in place — if you give them what amounts to an ultimatum, they might say “bye-bye.”
DALE: I would skip straight to the backup plan, because I don’t see you ever being fully rewarded in such an environment. However, don’t feel as if you’re leaving with nothing: You take your current record of success to a company that honors sales execs, and you will be greeted as heroes, and paid accordingly.
– Jeanine “J.T.” Tanner O’donnell is a professional development specialist and the founder of the consulting firm jtodonnell. Dale Dauten resolves employment and other business disputes as a mediator with Agreementhouse.com. Please visit them at jtanddale.com, where you can send questions via email, or write to them in care of King Features Syndicate, 628 Virginia Drive, Orlando, FL 32803. Copyright 2017 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.