My company, lets call it "A", was in severe financial difficulty in January and I began looking for a sales job. I am 49 years old and have been my company's top salesman for 6 years in a very competitive industry. Finally, I have found another company who likes me and is offering an opportunity to gain a significant income in sales of their product. My company, in the meantime, has recovered somewhat and is in the process of refinancing. There are a number of good sales opportunities with my company and there is a chance I might profit with equity in the re-formed new situation. The other company is already offering a stock options plan, is a small but growing company with a group of young entrepreneurs who want to eventually profit from their purchase of the company. Also, I have loyalty to my current company's owner. What to do? I have to make a decision by Monday. Loyalty do you live in collective society? Even though you feel a connection with your company you can get fired or layoff at a drop of the hat.
If you remain with A there might be chance that they downsize in order to maintain any upward climb they are now having. They could keep you because you are a top seller, but then they could drop the average sellers and the worst sellers. This will increase productivity on the top sellers. It may cause a problem for you and your quota may be higher. If you can handle it that is good, but don't be fooled into thinking that there will be no changes.
If you go for B, you run the risk of putting all your eggs in a basket that is currently being built. They may like you because of your top seller status and want that (label) on there team.
Anyway I would stick with A. Why? Because even though it may have it's problems you and the company are still established. The roots are planted and set. The other one isn't. In the mean time you can see how the new company develops. If your company does good, aren't you glad. If it continues to go down you can go to company B.
This way you have more options and won't run the risk of your clients being given to someone else. If A fails they will anyway. T410 Report It
Get all the logical thoughts out of the way. Which one do you have a good feeling about. You can tell. That is the one to go with or stay with. Later you will see why you made the right decision. You have to look at it this way. In life, are you normally conservative or aggressive? If you are conservative, then you stick with the old company. You know the company, politics, how to sell the products, managers, owners, etc. If you are aggressive, then you go with the new company. There is a high reward/high risk factor because there is an unknown factor. You could get there, make a lot of sales, then they could go broke.
Personally, I would stick with my current company, and take the equity portion they are providing. I would also inform them today that another company has made me an offer, and I would like them to counteroffer. If they dont seem willing to give up something, and you are their top seller, then that would signal that maybe in the long run you do need another position.
I would also stay in contact with the new company. If they are successful as they are going to maybe need your expertise in the long-term as well. If this were me, I probably wouldn't take the chance on the newer company. If they are as new as they say they are, working for them could be a big risk to your financial well-being. Of course, I'm a very loyal person and I don't like to change my routine all that much either. Perhaps you're someone that likes change, challenges, and risks. If you are such a person and you have a good feeling about the new company, then make a go of it. Had I been in your place I would have sticked to my job because looking to your age it is not viable to jump and looking to loyalty and the experience the company will definately consider you, Still another 5-10 years to go for retirement then why not live life king size.
Enjoy your life and do not switch. You asked what I would do so I'll address that first...I'll address what you can do after that...
I would take the decision to God and ask him what he thinks...and then trust that he will show me the correct answer through his holy spirt that lives in me. I would then go with the decision that gave me the most peace. Like others suggested, I would cut through all the facts and figures and go with the one that "felt right" to me. I'm in a different type of industry (academics), but this strategy has always worked out well for me...I changed employers four times in twelve years...and rejected several opportunities to do so in between...and I believe I'm exactly where I should be now (though I accept that could change at any moment).
If you have that resource at your disposal, then that's what I would recommend at this point. If not, then it sounds like you've done your homework so all that's left is the decision. For this, you might take a look at decision theory...specifically, the different criteria you can use to make decisions under conditions of "uncertainty" (or under "risk" if you have enough data to assign probabilities to different outcomes).
See http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/strategy/... for a wonderfully coherent description of decision making in general and decision making under uncertainty in particular. What type of decision maker are you?
...are you most comfortable being a pessimist...if so, then choose the option that has the best "worst-case scenario"...what's the worst possible outcome of staying where you are right now?...what's the worst possible outcome of taking the new job? Pick the one that has the most appealing worst possible outcome!
...are you most comfortable being an optimist...if so, then choose the option that has the best "best case scenario"...weigh those possible rewards with your current employer (include loyalty to your boss) against the rewards if your new employer achieves its goals...which one sounds better to you? Choose that one!
The last option is for those that aren't comfortable being overly optimistic or pessimistic...instead, they prefer to focus on minimizing the regrets they have when they make the wrong decision. This one would be a lot more complex to calculate (and the simplistic example in the document I referenced doesn't show you how to do it). Essentially, you would need to identify all the regrets you would have if you picked one option over the other...and depending on the number of outcomes you consider for each choice, it could be too complex to calculate. For example, suppose you boil it down to two possible outcomes for each decision...you just ask whether you get the rewards you envisioned or you didn't. If you take the new job and you get the rewards you envision, would you have any regrets over leaving your job? If you take the new job and you don't get those rewards (the company goes belly up in a year for example!) identify the regrets associated with that (include the regrets you do get what you current employer offers AND the regrets if they didn't...for example, if the worst case is that both companies go belly up, you shouldn't have any of that type of regret...however, if you think your current employer is less likely to go belly up if things go wrong then you would have some of this type of regret if you left and your new employer did go belly up!). Weigh all those regrets and pick the option that offers the fewest regrets (the regrets you can live with)!
Good luck...this sounds like a tough one...if I wasn't extremely unhappy with the way my current employer handled the recent financial crisis, I would probably stay where I was valuing the loyalty and security over the potential profits offered by the new job (better the devil you know)...on the other hand, if I felt like my current employer had done a poor job handling the crisis (and was only looking better now because they got lucky), especially if their decisions indicated a lack of loyalty to me, I would go with the new job placing more value on the chance for something better. ...but that's just me...what's important to you? Just from your screen name, I'm going to assume that you are a medical sales rep....either selling medical devices or equipment of some sort.
I'm in the Pharma. industry, so I know about the current states of affairs in med/pharma business...that being said, there are a LOT of advantages to going to a new, start-up medical company, especially, if they have a unique product that addressses an unmet need in the healthcare market.
Based on the "group of young entrepreneurs who want to eventually profit from their purchase of the company" aspect, I would be wary, because if they are saying NOW that their GOAL is to SELL the company, then it SOUNDS like they just a looking to make a profit in a merger/acquisition deal in the relative short term (just reading between the lines here).
THAT would make me VERY UNEASY....I would NEVER join a company who told me that UPFRONT!
I say stay put where you are...keep an eye on the other company though..if they are stable, consider a jump later...MAYBE. |
