[Urbane Guerrilla]

1) Not as a rep -- but as a manager. Reps do not have other reps working under them, nor is Vector Marketing structured that way. There is a "we'll reward you if you bring in somebody who succeeds" program, which kicks in after he succeeds at a certain level, but he's in no way under you. He, like you, is another independent contractor with Vector. You don't manage him unless and until you become his District Manager or something, and he for some reason does not become a manager. There is always the possibility that he could, as Vector is a growing company.

The emphasis, though, is on reps doing the job of moving the excellent product we sell -- we go up against fine brands of kitchen knives like Wusthof, Sabatier, and JA Henckels every day and we outsell all of them in the United States, and only Henckel outgrosses us worldwide. That is the thing we're here to do, and not to recruit a swarm of sub-reps like vampires' chyldes. The money's not in that, but in doing our jobs in people's kitchens, making their lives better than they once were.

2) Managers get their pay according to a rather detailed formula of varying percentages of the sales the reps in their offices make. This does not come out of the reps' commissions but out of the overall profit markup on the product. The formula is weighted to encourage the manager to do his main job, which is to recruit new sales reps and to train them. The manager succeeds when his reps do, and in all cases the rep receives the bulk of the commission, so it's designed to everyone's advantage from the newest new guy to the senior manager that runs the regional Pilot Office to make sure the new guy is trained in the best, most effective techniques of sales and of service, to follow up. This has the effect of the most successful manager being the one who has recruited a large officeful of sales reps, and then devotes all his effort to increasing their skill and keeping them enthused by any ethical means at his disposal. Competitions, awards, bennies, and "bucking them up whenever they are glum," which also happens -- salesmen really only sell when they are enthused.

The Branch and District manager's job is recruitment and training, and we endlessly pursue the best training -- and since what is best gradually evolves either from creativity or changing conditions, it is well to stay current. The managers get a good deal of training and dissemination of current info too. A great many Branch and District managers reduce their personal selling during the primary recruit/training season, which is the summer to give more time to their primary job.

Calling the fact that we have managers a "pyramid scheme" does violence to the definition of pyramid scheme. That we have office managers to recruit and train, and to pipeline orders to headquarters in Olean NY is not a pyramid anything, but the company's information-handling structure, if you want to be rather abstract about it. The flow of information goes both ways; orders in and commissions and recognition -- we do a lot of recognition because we are about nothing if not positive motivation -- out. Calling this structure a pyramid scheme is more the blather of persons allergic to sales and marketing than a factual description. Marketing can be learned, and one expert at it can thrive, but too it does call for a certain personality type -- generally a right-brained individual who is willing to take some risks and who can invent it as he goes along.

I like Vector because it's a no-bullshit outfit. The corporate culture figures there isn't time for it -- what there is time for is ethics. I have invariably been treated properly and according to my deserts.

That's the word from the inside.