would you work for one person who has

Deals_2

sent up his business and he currently runs it on his own? but now apparently through an agency looking for someone to help with sales. i worry that they will have cash flow problems as my partner runs his own business too and i am lookign for another job to fall back on for cashflow issues anyway!!! what should one look for to make sure one is always going to get paid if take on job etc.. thanks

Conor_3

Only if it was someone I know TBH. There's a saying that you're only successful in business if you've been bankrupt at least once but I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that.

Idiophreak

I think I'd meet with them - you can be quite upfront that you're worried about the stability of working for one guy. He might turn around and say "I have £75m in the bank, so don't worry about it". Not got a lot to lose by interviewing for it...

floss2

Yes, I have, but as a PA.....and I really enjoyed it - small company, varied workload, interesting job. Is it because he is using an agency or because he is looking for someone else?

He might have realised that his area of expertise is not sales, but to do with his product, or he may have seen a need/demand that he can't meet by himself. Or on the other hand, he may be using the agency because he doesn't have the time to trawl through applications himself, and they will filter out the ones who don't meet his criteria & rpesent a short-list for interview.

cazziebo

I'd feel a bit safer going through an agency tbh. The agency would have credit checked him to make sure he could pay their bill.

Deals_2

but good point.

cazziebo wrote: »

I'd feel a bit safer going through an agency tbh. The agency would have credit checked him to make sure he could pay their bill.

floss2

cazziebo wrote: »

I'd feel a bit safer going through an agency tbh. The agency would have credit checked him to make sure he could pay their bill.

You'd like to hope they have, anyway!

PasturesNew

Most of my working life has been for this type of people.

Sometimes it works out, sometimes not.

Usually not. But you don't know until you try.

It's usually in sales that they need help. The main issues I've experienced is their lack of resources/materials to handle the leads effectively. Inability to either close deals or find people who are closing the sales. So business often dries up as they don't have the time needed for the cashflow to work out.

The size of a company isn't the issue. It's how cash positive they are and if they're just working on a wing and a prayer or if they've got a really good product and good follow up system.

Can they provide stats on conversions and turnover. If they don't know what they're doing, they won't be able to steer you into productive closes and ultimately being paid.

I "worked for", self-employed, somebody in 2005. Promised the earth. But I started with him part time. What I did was fine (making sales leads). Unfortunately he took on some right dodgy sales characters and then wasn't ensuring appointments were kept and couldn't keep up with what I was producing.

He then said he was taking on a new Sales Director, would I be Project Manager for the web development side of the business, still promising the earth. I said OK and I left a job to do it.

He then suckered me into completely running his business for him, I was spending 60 hours a week on this and ended up managing his new Sales Director.

After 4-5 months I'd not seen a bean from him. I gave him 7 days to pay up, told him I'd stop working for him if there was no money. So, 7 days later, I just stopped working for him. Didn't answer his calls. That was the end of that. Never saw a penny.

It did leave me, however, financially well behind. But you have to try things sometimes. Never stop trying.

Bismarck

Conor wrote: »

Only if it was someone I know TBH. There's a saying that you're only successful in business if you've been bankrupt at least once but I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that.

I can believe it though it hardly fills me with confidence!

I'd personally at least meet up..then you can make a better judgement and learn from the conversation...if nothing else it's good experience...every interview I've been to has been beneficial in some way....even if it's just making my next one better or establishing in my mind what I want to do or how to phrase some of the trickier answers