Can someone explain to me whats wrong or right with this?

richmex said:

can it be that because I am an American they are trying to squeeze me

Click to expand...

Richmex,
I think it's more likely they're worried the gringo's trying to take advantage of them than it is that they want to take advantage of you. You're offering low base (10k/month) + high commission (50k/month). That kind of sounds like one of those 'work from home and make millions!' ads.

In DR, there's a long history of promising the world to advertisers & delivering little or nothing when it comes to websites that promote tourism. At times the ads would be sold, money collected, and well... then nothing. Same can be said for magazines in tourist areas, etc. Money's taken, little or nothing is delivered, and people end up extremely hesitant to advertise.

Also, there's somewhat of a mentality amongst your potential customers here that in high season we don't need to advertise, in low season we don't have the money to advertise. There's also a mentality of "give me space on your website & you can have a free lunch here once a week". A lot easier to work a trade than make an actual sale.

With that said...

Based on your #'s for 12500/week in commission based on 5 sales... each sale is a 25000 peso sale. To get bars/restaurants/hotels/discos to cough up 25000 pesos for a website + monthly fees... wow, that's big money. 5 sales a month would surprise me, especially in this economy.

With that said...

If you have criteria such as looking for someone with their own computer at home, telephone to use to make outcalls, (and possibly to pay their own transportation to make on-site follow up visits to clients?)... I'd say these people are smart enough to realize they're looking at something very difficult to sell. the ones who would say "yeah, man... i'll take that job! sounds cool" are perhaps not the one's you would want.

I'm not trying to say you have a bad product. I don't know. But the "you can make 12500/week selling internet ads" likely has a gimicky sound to many. i suspect as i said earlier, the people you're interviewing hear 10k/month & figure the commission will never materialize as it's a tough sell.

Research not done

Hi,
You need to realize that the average "respectable" sales gig pays 20-25K/month + comms + Navidad + health insurance.

For this money, you will receive CVs from college grads and experienced salesfolk. The candidate game is no different here than in NY, Frankfurt, Zurich or London. One posting may yield 1000 hits, which, of this you may pull 20 "decent" CVs. Out of those 20, you probably won't get 10 to answer phone or email. The ten that you get a hold of, most likely 3 show up (one maybe on time).

That said, if you are not an official Dominican business corporation with a DGII-recongnized structure such as CxA or SxA, with a published RNC ID (Registro nacional de corporaciones) AND you are NOT offering health insurance, then you can expect nothing short of a miracle.

One thing you have to understand (and please take this advice from a veteran PricewaterhouseCoopers senior manager with 7 years BUSINESS and personal experience in DR) that Dominicans see you coming when you get on the plane at JFK or Heathrow. You may get a street drifter to clean your yard of weeds for 300 pesos, but you sure as heck won't get an IT guy, Sales professional or even a college student to work for 10K base salary with no parachute or even an official business backing it up.

Maybe you posted on Aldaba and this is where you are getting your salary info - or maybe not. The postings on Aldaba are bottom-fishing and 85% of the companies are bullsh--. the other 10 are headhunters only collecting CVs. At BEST, 5% are viable job offerings.

The bottom line, the work ethic here is very different. You are going to have to mine a lot of coal to find that diamond in the rough.

Words like "sweat equity" and "performance based" are very rare here.
Combine that with the "you owe me" and "my cousins a lawyer" and you have a
labor pool that I try and avoid like the plague.

The reality is, more often than not you need to be a "hard as nails" employer here, otherwise you will be taken to the cleaners. Regardless of how well you treat or reward your employees.

richmex said:

Can someone explain to me whats wrong or right with this, I started a business here about 2 months ago, selling videos, web sites, banners and listings for my Dominican web site. I have another business in Mexico where I make web sites for the States and for companies in Mexico as well and I also have an office in New Jersey for only web sales. My problem here is that I am finding it very hard to hire people in sales to work for me, I am offering nomina of about $10,000 pesos a month, plus about 10% commission, doing outside sales, where with only 5 sales a week they can make 12,500 pesos a WEEK, NOT A MONTH.

My product is not the problem, but I feel that the people that I am interviewing want more money in front. I saw in one thread here yesterday how people here working in a call center, that they make about $15,000 a month, the only difference is that with me the position is as a independent, can it be that because I am an American they are trying to squeeze me, but a lot of the people that I interview do not have a job. Plus when I set up job interviews, if 10 people say that they are coming for an interview, maybe 2 show, I have never seen anything like this in my life. Strange?

Click to expand...

This is not strange in the DR- is pretty much the way it is-people seem very interested and dont show up for the first the meeting or first day on the job. You will go crazy trying to make sense of it, it is what it is.
And yes people would glady prefer a job with a base salary of 25k per month and zero commish as opposed to 10k with upside potential of another 50k commish.Try to find gringos to work if you can

CFA123 said:

Also, there's somewhat of a mentality amongst your potential customers here that in high season we don't need to advertise, in low season we don't have the money to advertise. There's also a mentality of "give me space on your website & you can have a free lunch here once a week". A lot easier to work a trade than make an actual sale.

To get bars/restaurants/hotels/discos to cough up 25000 pesos for a website + monthly fees... wow, that's big money. 5 sales a month would surprise me, especially in this economy.

Click to expand...

Man, what a truth! I work in cable-ad business (we place local insertions in international cable channels, such as Discovery, ESPN, Estrellas, etc.) in the East region and what you said holds true 10,000%.

Nobody has money for advertising, when times are good they say business is good and they don't need to advertise, when times are tough they say no money for advertising.

Also, ALL of them would prefer 1000% to do "intercambio" than pay money. And there are some where the barter is the ONLY way to get something - e.g. resorts. And they (e.g. resorts) do barter also with the big guys out of Santo Domingo (Telemicro, CDN).

We are a small biz so the principals do sales as well, and we see it every day. This is very tough market, and for you to succeed YOU have to be the one who makes the sale - only YOU know the product well. Salespeople for advertising do not work out, and I say DO NOT WORK OUT and say it over again. They screw your product up and do more damage than good. Been there, tried that.

ex-cuse said:

I have found that extracting $$ from dom.rep. people is not e.z.
i.e. the security com. has a contract with an area. 1k month. signed by all and the people want it.In what we would call a million dollar house they have 2-3 brand new cars and No money to pay.
the comp. comes and comes and Finally the neighbors get together and speak to the home owner because they are all in it together. Big money people. Well known. More than 7 million in cars. House 25 mill. Won't pay.
I myself think it is a little bit of a disease. (cheapness)

Click to expand...

................................................ Huh???? :ninja: