Don't believe all the hype!

We are the biggest! We are the best! We are the only one! We do it better than anyone else ever!

If you hear these words, I suggest buyer beware!

I think the expression that "if something appears too good to be true, it probably is" is one of the most appropriate ones for this day and age that we live in.

Everyone wants a great deal. Every week we are turning down scam orders for USB Flash Drives and T-shirts and a variety of other products. The salespeople want to believe that someone just called them out of the blue and said I need 10,000 of these items and I will charge a few credit cards and we don't care about price. Incidentally I need to ship these to Nigeria or the United Kingdom.

We all want to believe that everyone is honest and that no one would ever lie or misrepresent themselves or the company that they represent. I have a news flash for these people...

WAKE UP!

If you are looking to make a career change you owe it to yourself to do a complete and honest analysis of who you are considering aligning with. If they make grandiose claims about one thing or another I would be leery, very leery. Talk to existing reps who have been there for a while and ask them pointed questions about how you would fit in. If it is a distributor that you might join, speak with leading industry suppliers and see what they think. You might ask for other companies to consider as alternate choices.

I have said it before but I will say it again, ask for some audited financials. You want to know that the company you join is going to be around tomorrow and more importantly five or ten years from now. I know there are no guarantees but getting an opportunity to view their D & B ratings and some financial documentation can go along way to helping you to make a comfortable decision.

If you are aligning with a supplier firm, talk with your distributor friend and find out about their experiences selling the product line. Do they stand behind their product?

I read all of the industry publications and I see most all of the ads, and along with that I see and hear of way too many cases of good honest people getting taken for a ride. They get sucked in. They want to believe in the good side of people and they unintentionally turn their head and fail to consider that maybe some people have ulterior motives.

Don't assume anything! Ask questions, lots of questions and do your best to get validation on the answers.

Even when we at The Vernon Company are looking to add good quality people to our team we understand that we need to ask lots of questions. Getting someone to join by misleading them or hiding some aspect of our process that we know will not fit with them makes no sense!

Sure the press release that says "ABC Company aligns with The Vernon Company" might look great but if sixty days down the road the new team members are miserable and you think they are a big pain in the neck because they do not fit in, who really gained anything.

Our approach is to be 100 % open and honest because at the end of the day we know that we presented what we had to offer and how we would handle situations in an honest and straight forward manner. Unfortunately not everyone learned the lessons that my family taught me when I was young....

Liar, Liar...pants on fire!