What do you do for a living?

I work for a company called Heartland Payment Systems and do credit card processing, payroll, sales, gift card sales. They have a couple of different items that they sell but credit cards and payrolls are sort of the bread and butter.

How would you describe what you do?

I go from business to business and I sell the services of accepting credit cards. If you’re going to pay for your meal at a restaurant or if your company has payroll they have to pay their employees, we do that. You outsource that service to us.

What’s a typical work week look like for you?

So specifically what I do is I do either phone calls or drop-ins on merchants and try to persuade them to change their services over to us. So it’s a lot of driving and phone calls.

I’ve been doing this several years now and I’ve sort of fined tuned everything. On Monday I set up all my appointments and figure out where I’m going to go that week. So I’m in the office Monday all day making calls. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday just depends on where I have appointments. I’ll follow that up during that day by driving around other businesses or making phone calls to businesses in the area.

How did you get started on this career?

I got started by a friend of mine whose parents were in the business. The business has grown from what’s called a sales organization into one of the actual direct processors and a direct processors is the entity that actual takes the money out of my account if I go eat lunch at a pizza place. And there’s only really a handful of those players out there so I decided to get into the business.

What do you like about what you do?

Freedom and flexibility, and just the ability to do what I want to that day. It’s full commission so it’s basically what you kill is what you get to eat. So, I’m my own boss. I set my own rules and I succeed if I want to succeed.

Nothing that I don’t set. I mean you have to—if you’re not out prospecting, you’re not out making calls and doing the job, then you’re not going to see any results and it’s sort of evident. It’s a real rewarding business but it’s a sink or swim type deal. The business has a lot of high turnover because it takes a different cut of people to succeed in it.

What do you dislike about the job?

It’s fast paced and I don’t like that it’s really a never ending gig. As soon as you finish a job or do a deal, you have to go on to the next. It’s not one of those products that you can take time off and somebody else can do it for you. Again, if you’re going to succeed it’s all about you and getting up and working your normal days.  I say 8 to 5 but sometimes it’s weekends, sometimes it’s nights. It just depends on what’s going on. And I’d say that’s probably the thing that I don’t like about it.

How do you make money or how are you compensated?

It’s a full commission job. Like I said, if you don’t kill something, you don’t eat type deal.  Once you sign a deal up they pay you 50% of whatever the company is going to make on it on that merchant for that year and then they pay you a 15% residual each month if that person continues to process with you as long as they process with you.

In the beginning, it’s a full commission job and so you’re starting off with nothing in the beginning but once you do make some business, you do have residual income but they expect for you to continue to meet a certain sales numbers going forward even if you have a big residual check coming in.

How much money do you make credit card salesman?

It really depends. Heartland says the average sales representative makes about $90,000. The first year is lower than that, 40 – 45 maybe. And then for me, it’s been average the last couple of years. It’s been $90,000 something. But I had a buy out where they either force you or you can decide to sell part of your portfolio so that year might have been $120,000 – $130,000.

We had a girl in St. Louis that was just amazing and I think she made like $250,000 in a year.

How much money do you make starting out?

It’s about $45,000.

Would you say if there are any perks associated with this job?

They do trips maybe every six months or quarter. Each of them are different. You just never know but I’ve been to Hawaii, the Bahamas, Las Vegas, Dallas Cowboy Stadium, all on Heartland’s dime or they pay for the majority of it and they send you out there to do company stuff. So they do have other programs where you can win gifts and prices and stuff like that on top of it.

But the biggest thing, the best incentive is the residual that you make, after you produce or you get up to $2,000 in residual, you own the residual and so you can cash that in for 30 times whatever it averages out to be. And so basically a lump sum that you can get just for working at the business.

It’s just like a cash bonus that if you ever need cash or you want to do something with it or just pull it out. They have some requirements on it. You have to meet certain standards of production and attrition which is you can’t lose too many clients but I pulled out $30,000 a year or two ago and it was just a bonus.

What education or skills are needed to do this job?

Really it’s more determination than anything. A lot of people saying they’re providing the same service that you are and so the biggest thing is getting in somebody’s door, get them sitting down and talking to you. So you don’t need a formal degree or anything like that. It’s just good work ethic and being willing and able to be rejected. Those are the two biggest things.

I mean I would say the ratio is maybe for every 10 hired, probably 6 of it don’t make it.

It’s a hundred percent commission. You’ve got to be willing to hit the ground running and put a lot of work in, and not everyone is willing to do that.

What is the most challenging about what you do?

Just getting up every day and doing the same thing and ‘making it rain’. It’s all on you. It’s sort of like owning your own business because you eat depending on what you produce. And it’s very rewarding but discouraging too sometimes where you have days where you have a big deal that was going to be a monster and just two or three things happened and it just slipped through your fingers type thing. It’s the up and down, and that may be sales in general but with this gig because it’s hundred percent commission, it’s a little bit different.

What is the most rewarding about what you do?

That I set my own schedule and that I see results from what I produce. It is not just, “Hey, I landed a big client.” You don’t really get a bonus if you work for some sales company. Its ‘I landed this big client and that’s why I’m getting this big bonus’ because I put in the work and I kept on going and that’s what I needed to. Like I said, it’s close as you can get to doing your own thing without having payroll and having to deal with employees and that kind of stuff.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

I would say that if you’re going to do it, you need to jump in whole heartedly and be fully committed to spend nights, weekends, a lot of time in the beginning. And it’s snowballed since then where I now have people calling me where I can use referrals to make my life a lot easier and I’d say anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of my production each month is either from existing businesses or people changing ownership that I can rewrite their business type deal.

How much time off do you get or take?

Each month you have a set goal and depending on if I’ve already got that goal locked up for that month, I may take a couple of extra days off during the week. And I take at least three weeks or maybe a month off normal vacation time.

What is the common misconception people have about what you do?

That all credit card processors are equal. There’s a lot of shady companies out there that will screw the businesses that they process the credit cards for and just as likely they’ll screw their employees.

When you’re looking at companies that do this, there are only a few that are true players in the industry that actually don’t jack you around and price you fairly. And the same sort of goes for the payroll side of it is that there’s really like a couple real players in there that I compete against so just make sure if you’re looking at a business that does this to check references and verify that stuff.

What are your goals and dreams for the future in this job?

This job has given me the ability to go out there on my own a little more and reach out there and make a little more money. The concern of this job is just to keep building my portfolio up. But someday I want to do my own thing so this is why it’s a good job for me because I make good money but at the same time I’m learning skills necessary to succeed when I eventually decide to do my own thing.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

Just make sure whatever you do is something you enjoy and keep pushing forward. And if you’re not happy with whatever position you’re in, find something else to do because life is too short.

What do you do for a living?

I am the state judicial sign language interpreter interpreting in state and local courts.

How would you describe what you do?

I am an officer of the court and there to serve at the pleasure of the court to ensure that communication services are provided between the court and citizens who are deaf, hard of hearing or deaf-blind and who use sign language, oral interpreting services or who need real time captioning if they don’t sign.

What does your work entail?

I perform interpreting services during court proceedings for persons who are deaf, hard of hearing or deaf-blind.  I interpret along a sign language continuum from ASL to Contact Language or English to match the communication skills and style that the consumer uses.

Sometimes we employ the services of a Deaf Interpreter to team with to ensure the court and consumer have the best possible linguistic match.  Intermediary Deaf interpreters are often used in cases where juveniles are involved because they sometimes use different signs or slang or in cases where the consumer may have minimal language or no formal language development using gestures.  Deaf people grow up in a visual world and are skilled on picking up on all the nuances of a nonverbal language whereas as a hearing interpreter, I might miss something.

How did you get started in your job?

Years ago, I worked in the legal field as a paralegal while at the same time I was interpreting at church.  Later I met the wonderful lady who actually held this position at the time and aspired to do the same thing.  I decided to enroll in an Interpreter Educational Program at a local university to become a professional interpreter and put my legal skills to good use.  However, after a little exposure and training, I realized I was far from ready to work in this specialized field.  I went on to graduate school to get my master’s in a deaf related field and worked in the counseling field in several capacities.   I never gave up on my first loves of the law and interpreting and later decided to apply for this position.

What do you like most about being an interpreter?

What I like most about being an interpreter is the variety of experiences I have had over the years.  As a freelance interpreter, one can be up at the crack of dawn working in a restaurant kitchen interpreting for someone learning how to make biscuits while flour is flying off their fingers or the interpreter can be strapped into a harness and jumping out of an airplane with a student and flying through the air.

Interpreters sometimes have the honor to meet movie and television stars, famous performers and authors, popular athletes and important politicians who run our country.  Interpreters also have the opportunity to learn so much while working from biscuits or turbines to the latest research on stem cells or crime scene processing.  Because we know sign language, we are placed in countless milieus acquiring so much fascinating information that otherwise we would not have had the opportunity to learn.

What do you dislike?

Scheduling conflicts can be problematic because each court needs an interpreter and while we hire other interpreters to fill additional assignments, sometimes it’s hard to find someone available.

How do you make money or how you compensated as an interpreter?

I am on a salary but freelance interpreters are paid an hourly wage with travel time and sometimes mileage.

How much money do you make as a sign language interpreter?

My salary is approximately $49,000 and we pay $40 per hour with a two hour minimum to freelance interpreters.  All states pay differently and there is a huge disparity in pay levels across the nation, so it would behoove an aspiring interpreter to check pay rates in the state in which they live.

What education or skills are needed to be a sign language interpreter?

To become a certified interpreter with our professional organization, the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf or RID, the interpreter must have an associate’s degree to be eligible to sit for the certification exam.  In 2012, the educational requirement will be raised to a bachelor’s degree.

To become a good interpreter, you must have a lot of knowledge about a lot of things, so the more education one gets only increases their ability to interpret well.  There are many interpreters for the deaf with higher education and have Ph.D.s, Masters degrees and even some with law and medical degrees.  Many interpreters are on a mission to gain more education and knowledge so they can provide an efficacy of services to their consumers whether they are working in a courtroom, surgical room or a classroom.

What is the most challenging about what you do?

The most challenging situations usually involve interpreting for someone without a formal language or for a deaf person from another country.

What is the most rewarding?

When an interpreter leaves an assignment and they feel they’ve done a good job, they are on “cloud nine.”  However, if an interpreter leaves an assignment feeling uncertain about the service rendered, it can be gut wrenching.

What advice that you would offer someone considering this career?

Be patient because it takes a lot of time to develop language skills to become fluent enough to become a professional interpreter and even if the person already knows the language, they must still develop interpreting skills.   It is important to understand that just because a person is bilingual, that doesn’t automatically make them an interpreter.  They must develop interpreting skills, ethics and professionalism.

Stay in school because no one would want to have an ignorant interpreter.  There is no excuse to avoid school because there are college programs offering scholarships and grants for persons aspiring to be sign language interpreters.

After you’ve learned ASL and ethics and developed professional behavior and interpreting skills, stay in school or keep learning.  The more you learn about everything will only help you personally and professionally and help you be a better interpreter.

Are there any common misconceptions people have about what you do?

In court, interpreters are not supposed to interpret everything that is going on prior to their case being called because the assignment is not about equal access.  The assignment in court is about being called to do a specific case and if the interpreter were to interpret all the cases before theirs is called, they might not be able to do the best job possible because they would be fatigued and run the risk of injury.  The common comment from deaf people is that they feel they are not getting equal access and they aren’t, but if the assignment was about access, we would have to hire a team of interpreters to switch out so that fatigue and repetitive motion injuries would not be a factor.  Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources available to send two interpreters to an assignment that might only last fifteen minutes.

What are your goals and dreams for the future?

I want to be the best legal interpreter that I can be.

Is there anything else you would like people to know about what you do?

It is an honor to work in the legal field, to work with deaf people and to be allowed to be a part of the process.  The legal system is something I have always been fascinated with and every case is different.  It’s a fascinating field wherein I can continue to learn.

What do you do for a living?

I sell medical devices and drugs to hospitals in this area.

How would you describe what you do to someone?

I pick a product and find a need in the hospital to fill. Then I go through the process of educating physicians, pharmacy, operating room personnel, case management and then administration. So it’s pretty complex and you’ve got multiple decision-makers that have to be satisfied before the sale ever takes place.

What does your work entail?

Lots of time on the road. I figured the other day I probably have close to 1,000 different customers within the hospitals that are kind of touch points for me. So I can’t be there all the time with them. I try to dedicate at least one day a week to some of these hospitals and then spend a lot of time on the phone, lots of time emailing back and forth.

Network as much as possible….because you’re not going to see these jobs on Monster

What’s a typical work week look like for you?

I start at the crack of dawn. My typical day starts at 5:00 or 5:30 in the morning. The first hour or hour and a half is usually spent looking at reports, being on the computer, taking care some administrative stuff. I’m usually out of the house by seven o’clock or 7:30 and just continue to make my rounds. Depending on what account I’m working on, I’ll spend most of the day there, working with customers, making sure everything is going smoothly or selling a new product If I have a new product. And then I’m home by about 4:30 or 5:00 and continue to work out of my home office. So a lot of times it about six o’clock before I’m done. But because a hospital is open 24 hours a day, this job can be never ending. So you got to kind of be careful, I guess.

How did you get started in this?

I was in sales selling dictation equipment to medical offices and had a friend that I knew give me a call and said, “Hey, we’re expanding and we’re looking for a Rep in Longview, Texas are you interested in it?” And I had no idea what a pharmaceutical rep did, but it sounded good. And it sounded a little better than what I was doing as far as an income standpoint. So I interviewed for it and took it, and here we are 15 years later.

What do you like about what you do?

I like the autonomy to be able to go create my day, every day. I’ve got a product that I have to sell that nobody really tells me how to get from point A to point B. I have to go create that every day. And so I like the challenge of going out and doing the detective work and figuring out what the problem is and where my solution fits in. And then when it comes to fruition and the product gets used and sales start coming in, obviously, that’s very rewarding. Also, most of the products that our company carries really are kind of life-changing products. And knowing that those patients are getting the best product that’s making a difference in their life really is personally satisfying as well.

What do you dislike about this job?

Some of the red tape in regards to entertaining is tough. It used to be we had free range to do whatever. We could take customers to go play golf. We could go have dinner with somebody and all of that is gone. Anything we do now has to be within the laws of the hospital. It’s got to be documented. People have to sign in. It has gotten real red tapey, for a lack of a better word. We wait for products longer than we used to. It seems like seven or eight or nine years ago there was a product every year that comes out. I think the FDA has kind of slowed down its approval process. So you see a lag as to when new products may come to market. So kind of sitting around waiting on the new latest and greatest product to sell gets to be old.

How do you make money or how are you compensated in this career?

I’m compensated with a salary and, of course, car and gas etc.  And then I have a commission plan that goes along with the products that I sell. It’s paid quarterly.

And how much money do you make as a pharmaceutical sales rep?

Last year I made $163,000.

How much did you make starting out?

Starting out base salary was $32,000. I think I made about $50,000 my first year.

What education or skills would you say are needed to do this?

Four-year college degree is mandatory. What I see now on some of their postings is 1 to 2 years of either prior sales experience or Pharma experience before they are hired by us.
You need to be a great communicator too that can listen and figure out solutions. Also, like I said before, you kind of on your own out here, and if you can’t pull that off every day you’re not going to last very long.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Probably the most challenging is getting the product in the hospital and getting it moving for the first time because of all the different touch points and different personalities and opinions. Sometimes everyone doesn’t align. So when you have one person that is against it, it’s only one versus 10 but they have so much political capital in that hospital, they can stop the process from taking place. That’s very frustrating.

What is most rewarding?

The most rewarding is seeing it get put on hospital formulary, get used, and getting my competitor removed from that hospital.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

Network as much as possible. Get involved in many of the groups that are on LinkedIn. There are tons of different pharmaceutical professional organizations, medical device organizations that are listed on LinkedIn. Just get into some of those boards and start talking and networking and figure out what companies may be expanding in the future or hiring in the future. And then if you got two or three recruiters, continue to work with them because you’re not going to see these jobs on Monster. You’re not going to seek them in the classified ads. They are usually filled by word-of-mouth or recommendation from someone that’s already in the industry. And if you don’t know those people, you really don’t have a chance of getting in.

How much time off do you get to take?

Now I get four weeks vacation plus two holidays, two floating holidays. So I get 22 days off of just my own time and then, of course, they’re gracious with company holidays around Christmas and Fourth of July and Thanksgiving and that kind of stuff. So I don’t know what the total is, but it’s a good amount.

What’s a common misconception people have about what you do?

People seem to think that people in Pharmaceutical Sales, as a whole, work about 2 to 3 hours a day and make easy six-figure money for not a lot of work, and this is not true.

What are your goals and dreams for the future in this career?

If I spend another 16 years that will give me 31 years in the industry with a nice 401(k) and pension. I’ve done the projections. I will retire and be just fine. But as far as promoting or moving up to management or to the home office, I’m not interested. I’m a career hospital representative.

What else would you like people know about this career or what you do?

That it’s fun. And if you like sales and like people and enjoy the “windshield”, which you will see a lot of, it’s a great gig to have and the money is great. There is some flexibility but with that flexibility comes a lot of responsibility also. But it’s a very fun and rewarding career.

Eleanor Feldman Barbera, PhD of www.mybetternursinghome.com was nice enough to visit with us about her profession as a professional psychologist.

What do you do for a living?

I am a psychologist and I specialize in geriatric psychology which is working with older adults. I work mainly in nursing homes.

How would you describe what you do?

I talk with the residents to try to help them cope with the challenges that they’re facing and adjust to the nursing home environment. I work with the staff to provide the best care for the residents. I also help the families help their loved ones adjust to the nursing home as well and cope with any challenges working with the staff members and the nursing home administration.

What does you work entail?

I go to a nursing home, I’m only in one nursing home right now, though at times I have been in more than one. I work as part of the team, so I might attend a morning report, and then I have a roster of residents that I see and I generally meet with them in their rooms. Then I talk with the staff about them.

Being a psychologist is a very rewarding profession. I can always say I am doing good in the world and that’s important to me.

I may look at the medication in their chart or talk to the doctors or another staff member to try to work out any kind of problems that the resident may be having.  I consult with the psychiatrist and talk with family members to try to create a more pleasant environment for them and help them with any kinds of problems, whether they’re feeling depressed, or they’re having an issue with a roommate, they’re not getting along with the staff member, any kind of problem.

What’s a typical workweek for you?

Typically I see about thirty to forty residents of the nursing home a week. I talk with the staff every day and I have a lot of paperwork to take care of.  It’s always interesting and often challenging. When I go into work, I have a certain number of people that I need to see so it’s pretty flexible in that I start at a certain time, I see who I need to see, and when I’m finished, I can leave.

How did you get started?

I got started in the mental health field when I was in college. I started by working at a counseling center at the university I attended. It was really interesting and I felt I had an aptitude for it and I continued on to graduate school. I started specializing in geriatrics because I thought it was going to be a boom industry because there were going to be many people that needed care as they got older. I was young in my career at the time so I wanted something that would sustain me throughout my career and found that I really enjoyed it. I feel like I can be of tremendous help to the residents in the nursing homes.

What do you like about what you do?

I do feel that I am very helpful. I make a tremendous impact on the residents’ lives and I know because they tell me. I like the flexibility of the job. I like the challenges of it. I have an opportunity to be very creative in my approach to handling problems in a community setting.

Is there anything you dislike at all about your job?

Usually, being a psychologist, you see people when they’re having trouble and when they’re better they say thank you and then they leave. So one of the challenges is that when people want you and need you they’re having a hard time, so you have to get used to being with people that are having a hard time. I also find it challenging when I see people at the nursing home that are not getting the type of attention or care that they should.  That’s why I’ve been developing my work where I have the opportunity to give people on the staff ideas of how to handle problems in a different way that’s more effective and helpful for the residents.

How do you make money or how are you compensated?

My work is fee for service which means I get paid for the number of people that I see. So some psychologists that see many residents in a nursing home or see many patients in an outpatient practice would make more money.

I really don’t think you have to be crazy to see a shrink. I think that life is very challenging and that it can be incredibly helpful to have the outside perspective of somebody that doesn’t have a vested interested in your choices that you make.

And people that don’t see quite as many people would make less money.  It really depends on how ambitious you are and how much time you have to put into your work and what kind of resident population you’re working with.

How much money do you make as a psychologist?

The salary range for a psychologist is between $70,000 and $200,000. I am sure there are people who are making more and people who are making less.

How much money do you make starting out?

It depends if you’re working as a salaried employee because there may be jobs where you can get $50,000-70,000. And then if you’re starting a practice, you probably don’t make very much until you get more people coming through your door.

What education or skills are needed to be a psychologist?

First you need to get a high school degree, then a college degree, and then you need to get a graduate degree.  And you need to have a PhD level. So that could be a PhD, a PsyD(Doctor of Psychology), sometimes people work with an EDD(Doctorate of Education), but it’s a doctoral level program. And then you would have to be in a clinical study so that you can be licensed. You have to take a licensing exam in order to work as a licensed psychologist.

What is the most challenging part about your job?

I think as part of my job I tend to fall in love with everybody that I work with, at least to a certain extent, and since I’m working in a nursing home, some of them do pass away. I miss them and have to deal with losing them, so that is the most challenging part for me.

What is the most rewarding?

My residents give me such compliments, it’s quite lovely, and it’s very rewarding walking into a room where somebody is anxious or depressed and seeing them within the span of my meeting feeling so much better.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

I would caution them to think carefully about whether they are able to spend most of their time talking to people that feel bad, and are having troubles.

How much time off do you get/take?

Because I’m not working for any particular company, I can take as much time off as I want as long as I have coverage for the patients I am seeing. So it can vary. But of course when I take the time off, I don’t get paid. So you have to factor that in.  I typically take three or four weeks off a year.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

I think that many people have seen a lot of Woody Allen movies and so they think that they would be lying on a couch, talking to somebody that isn’t saying much. And often you have people saying “Oh you’re a shrink? I’m not crazy.” I really don’t think you have to be crazy to see a shrink. I think that life is very challenging and that it can be incredibly helpful to have the outside perspective of somebody that doesn’t have a vested interested in your choices that you make.

What are your goals and dreams of the future?

Well I find that I’ve been very helpful for individual residents in their rooms and individual nursing homes.  But my goals for the future are to bring the kind of help that I offer to them to a much larger group because I think I have a perspective that many people don’t have. And that is currently what I am working on; training staff members how to help in the nursing home and creating opportunities for families that are looking to place their loved ones in a nursing home learn from me about and how to transition their family member to a nursing home.

Is there anything that you would like people to know about what you do?

Being a psychologist is a very rewarding profession. I can always say I am doing good in the world and that’s important to me.

What do you do for a living?

I invest money for people.

How would you describe what you do?

I create either a nest egg for retirement, or an income for them to live off of based on the investable assets that they have. And then I also give them advice in areas that I really don’t have anything to do with such as whether they should do a mortgage on their house, or whether they should spend money for this or that, because ultimately I know what their basis is on their investable assets and so I try to keep them from overspending for something they really can’t afford. Or in some cases I tell them to live life a little better, be a little less conservative because they can afford to. Sometimes it helps to have someone from the outside tell you that, rather than you come up with it on your own.

What does your work entail?

Again, I have to be knowledgeable of the market, of mortgage rates, anything that has to do with your financial health.   So that I’m capable of answering a question from a standpoint “Should I invest this money in XYZ? Well it really depends on what your risk tolerance is. That’s different for different people. It really depends on what your future goals are, that’s different for everyone. And just because one person would say to you “I want my money to make X for me, and another person would say “I want to make Y off my money.”  If somebody expects to make 10% a year on their money, then why put them in investments that would make 30%. Its more risk than they’re willing to take on.

This week I’ve probably put in easily 12 hours a day, six days a week. It probably won’t be half that next week, it varies. A lot of it depends on who needs what for that week, and what the markets doing for that week. Sometimes the best thing you can do in the market is nothing. Sometimes that is the very best decision.

You don’t want to try to make something out of nothing. Probably 90% of the returns in the market are made in 10% to 15% the amount of time through the year.

How did you get started?

I’ve always been good with numbers, I like to read, the market fascinates me, and although I’ve been in it 20 plus years I think if I was in it 50 plus years, every day, almost every day without fail, you learn something new. Therefore it’s always challenging.

What do you like about what you do?

I like what I do, but more than that I like who I do it for. My clients are all very, very close friends. It gives me an opportunity to be involved in their life which I dearly enjoy, and so my life kind of wraps around theirs. I don’t know what I could do for them other than this that I would be this involved with them.

What do you dislike?

The industry that I’m in is very, very heavily regulated. And some of the regulations are so pyramided meaning so many regulations accomplish the same thing, but it’s just that so few people understand the business they create all these levels of regulations that are something you can’t get around. You have to deal with them. Our industry is one that has never moved into the computer age. We still have to keep paper records, and when I say paper records you have to keep some of them for six years, which is archaic, but it’s never changed. So the industry has never gone has never progressed itself to the level that technology has.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

I make money as a percentage of assets that I manage for people. If their account goes up then my salary will go up with it. If their account goes down, I take a pay cut. So as they do well so do I.

How much money do you make?

$150,000/yr

Would you say there are any perks to this career

You make friends in this business that are, you know, they start out as clients, and you can’t spend that much time with people without getting to know them extremely well. And if there is a click there between you and your clients, then you’re enriched with a friendship that you probably wouldn’t have had otherwise. If you played golf once a week, or if you were in the Rotary club together, you’re not going to develop that level of communication that you would through casual contact, and I have that with quite a few people.

What education or skills are need to do this?

A college degree, mine was in finance, but if I had to do it over again I probably would get a degree in English. So a college degree would probably be a starting point, and then you have to have obtained different licenses depending on what field you want to go into in investment. You’ve got to start out with a Series 7, and then there are other series depending on what you’re going to do in the business; 7, 8, 9, 10, 4, 63, 66, it just goes on and on.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Probably the most challenging is curbing people’s greed and expectations. Because in reality in today’s market if you can make 10% on your money you’re doing extremely well, and people think they should make more, and many times they do. But I would say curbing their expectations is probably the biggest challenge, and then making them be honest with themselves. For someone to say they want to make more than 10%, then obviously they’ve got to take risks that would jeopardize their principal. And in reality for most people, I’ve heard it said that Will Rogers said this, “For most people the return of their principal is far more important than the return on their principal.” Because as you get older you have less of a hope of replacing your nest egg, so as long as you keep that intact and it earns a return for you you’ll do well.

What is most rewarding?

Seeing people do well.  I see it before they do, and so it’s almost like being a part of it with them, so that’s definitely the most rewarding

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

Probably don’t do it, and the reason I say that, you know I’ve got 20 plus years in it, and so it’s a little late for me to turn around, but it’s like so many fields that you go into where you put a lot of study time and before you get started. Whether you’re a doctor, or whether you’re an investment adviser, or whatever everything is kind of going into a packaged product. And for most people a packaged product is okay. They buy a mutual fund and they are diversified from dollar one to some degree. My generation, which is the generation of baby boomers, you know we’re creeping towards retirement, and so therefore we want to take less risk with our money, so a packaged product is just fine. So it’s hard to differentiate yourself from the other people in your field, and when I think you really do well is when you can do that.

How much time off do you get/take?

Well, everybody needs time away from their job.  Most people should take two weeks away just to refresh themselves. You know I take off when I want to take off, and maybe it does average two weeks a year, maybe it averages five weeks a year, but what I do is work, passion, hobby it’s a lot wrapped up in one for me. I make money at it, but I enjoy what I do so I would probably do it if I didn’t get paid. So for me I’m one of those lucky people that I get to come to work and do something that I enjoy, even more than that I enjoy who I do it for. So I’m not as in need of a break from it as most people would be if they worked on an assembly line.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

That you make a lot of money at it. If I were to put an hourly amount based on time that I spend at it, it would shock people. So that’s probably the biggest misconception.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

Well, I’ll probably do it as long as I’m mentally capable of doing it, certainly as long as I’m healthy enough to do it, because I enjoy it. So I don’t expect next year it to be different from this year. I enjoy what I’m doing so. I’ve reached the age right don’t make long-term plans, you know. I do more long-term planning for my clients than I do for myself. Me personally I don’t buy green bananas. So that tells you a lot about my focus and forecast. And I never tell my clients “Oh you’re in for the long run. Don’t worry about it. It will take care of itself. If people really believe that, then you would be able to tell your banker when your note comes due, “Don’t worry about it. Ill get it to you eventually. You know, your money has to work for you just like you work for it.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a court reporter.

How would you describe what you do?

We go to attorneys’ offices and we write verbatim what’s being said in depositions or in hearings and go to court sometimes as well. If you ever see the person on TV sitting there with the machine writing, that’s what we do.

We are freelance here, meaning that we usually go to attorneys’ offices rather than court, but we do fill-in at court sometimes, too.

What does your work entail?

Some of the reporters are mask reporters, which means they just repeat into another recorder exactly what’s said, and some of us are writers, where we’re typing shorthand what’s said, and then the shorthand gets transcribed into English in a computer.

…you learn a lot…You can hear from an accountant talking numbers all the way to an expert in vehicle motion. So you really get to hear from a lot of interesting people.

Then you have to go back and proof it and edit it and be sure that it’s all correct, and after that’s done, then it all has to be printed and copies made along with any exhibits.

I wouldn’t call it a 9 to 5. You may have a deposition all day from 9 to 5, but if they need it the next day or in a couple of days, you’re going to have to be working evenings to get it finished.

How did you get started?

I was living in San Francisco and working as a legal secretary and started talking to the court reporter who came to our office. She had a school for court reporters so I decided to try it out and really loved it.

What do you like about what you do?

You have flexible hours. You’re not always in the office, you’re out. Everyday, it’s something new, and you meet a lot of new people and you have some really interesting cases. It’s very rarely boring.

What do you dislike?

It can be long hours sometimes where it’s not come home at 5 o’clock and you’re off.

If you see the close captioning on TV, those are reporters that are sitting there, taking it down. And you can do that from your home, do it through satellite while watching it and have it feed over. I know people who have done the Olympics just sitting in their living room taking it all down.

Your work has to be scheduled around what has to go out the next day. If you take in something they needed tomorrow, you have to work on it that night. There’s just no way around it.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

It’s by the typed page. So, the more pages you produce, the more you make. And the more they talk, the more you make.

How much money do you make as a court reporter?

As a court reporter, starting out, I would say, starting, you could make $30,000. And then it depends on how busy you are. You could make $80,000 if you’re really busy and really good at what you do.

Are there any perks to this career?

Well, you learn a lot, or a little about a lot of things. You can hear from an accountant talking numbers all the way to an expert in vehicle motion. So you really get to hear from a lot of interesting people.

What education or training is needed to be a court reporter?

You have to have a high school education, and then with the machine reporters, you have to go to school. The average is 2 ½ to 3 years. And you take classes learning the theory of it, but then you also take medical, legal, and English classes. And the mask reporters, I’d say 6 months to a year on theirs and they can learn that on their own. There are correspondence courses for both mask and machine, and there are no schools around here. The closest machine school is in Tulsa.

You have to take medical classes so you know what they’re talking about. If they’ve gone through all these medical terms and you have no idea what they’re talking about it’s going to make it really tough. You have to be sure that you’ve got the right spelling and know that that’s the word that they meant to say.

What is most challenging about being a court reporter?

The speed sometimes. Sometimes they get to going really fast, and you have to slow them down because you can’t get it, or they’re talking over each other and you have stop and say, one at a time. It’s a lot of things that a tape recorder wouldnt get. You really need to have a person there who can know what they’re saying and stop if you need to.

What is most rewarding?

I like to get out and meet all the people. That’s one of the things I like most about it, you get to meet so many interesting people.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

That you have to be a good listener, you have to hang in there through the training. It has to be something you want, not everybody can do it. Some get into it and just think, this is not what I want to do at all. Just look into it, you can get online and find information on it.

How much time off do you get/take?

If you’re not working that day, you don’t get paid anything. So in the beginning it was very little. Now I have more.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

That you just go and you write it down during the deposition, then you go home and it’s done, that’s all there is to it. All they see is you sitting there taking it down. There’s a lot of work behind the scenes that goes on.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

Just to keep building up. I started out in my extra bedroom doing it just myself and now I have seven other reporters with me, and we have video conferencing, we have transcription, and so, and that’s a fun part of it, too. Just to keep building it, but keep it small enough that it’s in control.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

Well, you can go on from being a court reporter to being a CART(Communications Access Realtime Translator) reporter. If you see the close captioning on TV, those are reporters that are sitting there, taking it down. And you can do that from your home, do it through satellite while watching it and have it feed over. I know people who have done the Olympics just sitting in their living room taking it all down.

There are also students at universities who are deaf that they have so they have a court reporter who’s sitting there taking down what’s being said in the class and it’s coming up on the computer so that they can keep up with what’s going on.

So there are a lot of different things that you can do with that skill.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a bondsman, bail bond agent, to be correct.

How would you describe what you do?

I bond people out and I put them back in jail.

What does your work entail?

I deal with criminals on a daily basis. I deal with their families. I deal with their troubles. I deal with everything. I make sure they go to court. If they don’t show up to court, I have to go find them and either make a new court date or put them back in jail.

Quick Fact!
How to become a bail bondsman? For starters you have to have a squeaky clean record. Then you have to take a test and get sponsored by a bonding company to get started. See what else this bondsman said about how to get started and what requirements there are to become a bondsman.

We have rotating schedules where we have several agents in this office and we rotate on a 24-hour shift. I’m on every three days. I come in to skip trace(aka bounty hunting) in between. In this state, we can’t refer to it as bounty hunting. It’s called skip tracing.
How did you get started?

I used to do this a long time ago and I actually did it part-time because I was going to school full-time with my master’s degree in nursing and decided I wanted a real job and went to nursing and worked for 11 years, hated it and then went back to bonding.

What do you like about being a bondsmen?

The rewards would be if you get some of these people that are messing up in their lives and all of a sudden you see them turn around. You’ve got to build a kind of a rapport with your clients, because if you’re a hard-ass to them, chances are they’re not going to want to go to court. They’re not going to step up for you as well. So when you reach out and help one person and it makes a difference in their life, then it’s kind of rewarding.

What do you dislike?

People lying straight to my face. The repeat offenders, we call frequent flyers, that you just keep going out on a limb for and they keep letting you down. There’s also the fear of forfeitures. You have to go in front of a judge because our client didn’t go to court and we’ve got to pay the bond. So we beg for mercy from the judge to get an extension to locate this individual.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

It’s commission. I make money on every bond that I write. For example, on a $1500 bond the bail is $150 plus other fees.  My commission split is 50/50 so I will make $75.

How much money do you make as a bail bondsmen?

About $55,000.

What education or skills are needed to be a bondsmen?

You have to take a beginners education class. It’s an eight-hour class and then you go and take the test, 100-question test and you have to have a 70 in order to pass it. It’s a very confusing test.

You try not to get personal with the clients, but sometimes it helps. You know, if they need a hand to get to court, if they need a ride, they know they can call our office. And most offices are sort of like that. And I think it needs to be like that. But, by all means, we’re not Momma either, they dug the hole, they can get their self right on out of it.

They say the test in this state is one of the hardest in the nation. You’ve got a lot of homers that come in here wanting to be Billy-bad-ass for the day and carry a concealed handgun so you have to weed them out. You can’t just say ‘hey’, I want to be a bondsman, and go take the class and test and be a bondsman. You have to have somebody actually sponsor your license. You’ve got to get hired onto a company before you can actually enter into the bail bonding world. You don’t necessarily have to have been with this company for a period of time. You just got to be hired through the company. You have a FBI background check done too. And it’s very thorough¦I mean, they flip over rocks. They’ll call your references, they don’t screw around. It took four months for mine. The longer it takes, the better off you are. Because they’re actually trying to find something wrong. You can’t have any felonies on your record and a few misdemeanors such as theft and domestic battery.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Skip tracing. Trying to locate the hard ones that are hiding under a rock. From the time they miss court, we have 120 days on a misdemeanor and 90 days on a felony to find them.

What is most rewarding?

Putting the deadbeats back in jail. I mean, if they don’t want to go to court and they don’t want to step up and take care of their crap, the best thing for them is be right back where they need to be. Or at the other end, you’ve got a client that’s been a drug user and you’ll see them six months down the road, they’re clean, they went through rehab, that could be rewarding as well. But…today it would be putting them back in jail, tomorrow it could be different.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

There’s more to it than everybody thinks. We’re not Dog the Bounty Hunter. We’re far from it. It’s not just getting them out of jail and forgetting about them. It’s also about being their friend, not just their bondsman. You try not to get personal with the clients, but sometimes it helps.

You’ve got a lot of homers that come in here wanting to be Billy-bad-ass for the day and carry a concealed handgun so you have to weed them out.

You know, if they need a hand to get to court, if they need a ride, they know they can call our office. And most offices are sort of like that. And I think it needs to be like that. But, by all means, we’re not Momma either, they dug the hole, they can get their self right on out of it.

How much time off do you get/take?

If I want to be off a couple days next week I can. We don’t have a set schedule. We don’t have the-you get one or two weeks off a year deal.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

We are not Dog. We don’t just go and bust down doors on an everyday basis and we’re not all just hard-asses and mean and hard to deal with.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

My own TV show(laughs).  I don’t really want to be the owner and I like what I’m doing.  This is about as good as it gets.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

It’s all based on trust. We go out on the limb to bond you out and we get a feeling that you’re not going to, we’re not going to write it. There’s two people in the world that you really don’t want to piss off when it comes to you sitting in jail. One is the judge and the other is a bondsman. The judge will rake your bond up and if you piss off a bondsman and —- you’re what we call a ‘screwed pooch’.

What do you do for a living?

I own an insurance agency.

How would you describe what you do?

I sell personal insurance mainly; auto, home, and life insurance. It’s eighty percent sales, twenty percent management.

What does your work entail?

It’s pretty much sales. You have to get prospects then figure out if they’re people that need what you have. Then you have to figure out if they’re going to be profitable and that they aren’t going to cause you all kinds of problems because insurance is kind of like a loan. You can’t get people that are not going to pay their bills.

It’s good for somebody that say, went to college, moves back home, doesn’t ever want to move, wife’s happy there, and is like, “I’m going to build a career here that I can have forever and get a lot of free time and go watch my kids play ball.” It’s long-term. It’s a jog, not a sprint.

Pretty much from there it’s just selling the deal and closing the deal, and managing it, keeping customer service for the people that bought from you.

How did you get started?

My family had been it.

What do you like about what you do?

Freedom. I own my own business. I can go do whatever I want to do, work whenever I want to. There’s unlimited potential for income. I might make $40,000 more this year than I made last year and I might make $100,000 less next year? It’s all up to me. One thing that I will say though, one really positive is it’s very stable too. Once you build an agency and you get a renewal base, 90 percent of the people will stay with you, so I could be gone for two weeks and still make the same amount of money.

What do you dislike?

When someone comes in and wants insurance from you and you can’t cover them because they’ve had two claims, or it’s a friend of yours and the accidents were really not their fault but they have two claims and that’s the rule and you can’t cover them.…the insurance company kind of tells you want you can and can’t do with

I can’t set the prices on the policies, I just have to sell what I’ve been given. If you owned your own business where you sold t-shirts, you could decide if you want to sell them for $40 or $6. This isn’t that business. They tell you they’re 38 bucks, they may be twice as much as anybody else but you have to go sell it.

regards to writing policies, and sometimes it makes it hard because it differs from what you would want to do if you owned the place.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

It’s all commission and performance bonuses.

How much money do you make?

About $130,000

What education or skills are needed to do this?

College degree. It doesn’t really matter what their degree is in as long as they have one. They’ve got to be able to work with people really well. That’s the key, communication and working with people. That’s what sales is, you’ve got to have a good personality and be able to deal with a lot of situations and learn how to deal with peoples emotions.

What is most challenging about what you do?

I’d say it’s to take what you’re given and work with it. I can’t set the prices on the policies, I just have to sell what I’ve been given. If you owned your own business where you sold t-shirts, you could decide if you want to sell them for $40 or $6. This isn’t that business. They tell you they’re 38 bucks, they may be twice as much as anybody else but you have to go sell it. Also dealing with the weather and things that are out of your control that can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars. I can get a bonus for Christmas for $60,000 or I can get a bonus for Christmas of $0. And that all depends on how many people filed claims against me. Anytime there’s a damn storm, we’re up in the middle of the night watching it. Trust me, dude, I’m telling you. It’s wild. It can literally, on my income anymore, it can make the difference of $100,000 to $150,000 a year in my pocket. I don’t pay it out of my pocket, but there’s a loss ratio which means they look at how much you take in and how much you pay out. And depending on if your percentage’s in the right place, you get a bonus.

What is most rewarding?

I’d say the most rewarding in this business would be long-term, the renewal base business where you built a business and you worked hard and it gets to a point where it can be put on cruise control. And you see lots State Farm agents and all those guys, they’re always hunting for two weeks, traveling and whatever.

I can get a bonus for Christmas for $60,000 or I can get a bonus for Christmas of $0. And that all depends on how many people filed claims against me. Anytime there’s a damn storm, we’re up in the middle of the night watching it. Trust me, dude, I’m telling you. It’s wild. It can literally, on my income anymore, it can make the difference of $100,000 to $150,000 a year in my pocket.

The most rewarding thing of it is, it’s not like a doctor where you’ve got to be there to see patients. Once you’ve built the business, then you can kind of go and do whatever you want to do.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

I wouldn’t start from scratch. I guess that’s the best way to put it. I would somehow either buy in or get put into an existing agency that already has a book of business. But it’s very long-term…I mean, it’s very hard to go in and just start from nothing. It takes so many years just to get to where you’re even making some money. I’d also, before you sign on, make sure you really do your due diligence on what the company’s telling you about what you’re getting. Sometimes they’ll bullshit that and say “Oh, you’re getting this many clients and you’re getting this and you’re getting that,” and then you get in there and go, “Oh, wait a minute,”.

How much time off do you get/take?

Time off, I guess that would include my other business ventures. If you want to look at it from that standpoint, probably four months. And the typical agent’s not probably going to be able to do that, but easily six to eight weeks. It’s different for everyone. I own my own business. If some guy is an agent for Farm Bureau, that guy actually works for Farm Bureau. He’s like a loan officer at a bank.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

I would say the misconception is that we make more money off things than what they really do. Like what insurance agents do or an insurance company even in general. People think you make so much more money than what you do. People don’t realize that, yes, I took in, $10,000 grand but, as soon as they wreck their car, I pay it right back out.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

Just to build a big agency. My deal’s pretty much to get it where I make $350,000 to $400,000 a year and don’t even have to go by there. That’s my goal. And I mean, mine’s a little different. My whole goal in the long-run is to set it up to have people to sell for me. I’m trying to set up the business and let it run itself.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

It’s a long-term business. It’s a very long-term business. It’s not something you walk in to and in a couple of years you’re going to just boom, all of a sudden you’re making $100,000. It’s good for somebody that say, went to college, moves back home, doesn’t ever want to move, wife’s happy there, and is like, “I’m going to build a career here that I can have forever and get a lot of free time and go watch my kids play ball.” It’s long-term. It’s a jog, not a sprint. It takes so long to develop those relationships with wealthy clients and get lots of money to come in the door, that if you’re moving all the time, you’re going to be starting back over all the time.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a Pharmaceutical Sales Rep for Pfizer.

How would you describe what you do?

I would describe it as a sales person calling on doctors and my job is to get doctors to use the drugs that I’m selling. And I have four products, so I have to get them to write my four products for the patients.

What does your work entail?

You see anywhere between 10 and 15 doctors a day for 5 days in a week. You call on those doctors who are the biggest prescribers, so I would look at a computer

You’re offering a product that a lot of times, people don’t believe in and you have to make them believe in that product because if your product wasn’t superior to most other products, it wouldn’t be out here.

and look at a doctor’s profile and if they have a lot of potential to write my products, I target those doctors and try to get those doctors to write my product.  During the work week, you travel a lot. Some territories are bigger than others, but mine’s about two hours long, so some days I’m two hours away from home in a small town calling on a small clinic or there’s other days when I’m in a bigger city and I call on the doctors there. In some work weeks you have speaker programs where you have doctors come in and you take a specialist, a well-known specialist from another state or city. And you take them into offices and let them talk about their experiences with your products and how they had success stories with your products. And what you’re trying to do is try to influence those doctors into writing your product.

What do you like about what you do?

Personally, I enjoy being out and moving around. I’ve had a desk job and I liked it as well, but I really like being out and being moving around all the time because you’re always running into all different kinds of people. You get to see different kinds of people every day.

You have to have something to offer these companies. The pharmaceutical companies are the most applied to companies in the United States right now. More people want to work in pharmaceuticals than any other. My company actually gets more applications per day than Wal-Mart. That’s huge, so it’s very competitive to get into and if you’re going to try to get into it, don’t get discouraged if you get turned down for a while. It took me over a year to get hired.

And just meeting all the different people and interacting with those people is probably one of the top things that I like about it, and also, it’s just like your territory is your business. It’s just like having your own business and that’s your territory to work and try to maximize your profits and everything in that territory.

What do you dislike?

There’s a lot of pressure with this job. The company increases your quotas every year, so you have a lot of pressure to outdo what you’ve already done. So with most drug companies 100 percent isn’t good enough. 100 percent is the bare minimum, so you’re trying to outdo 100 percent. You want to have a 160 percent quota and there’s a lot of pressure. And with this job as well, there is a lag time as far as getting your reports. So, if I go into an office and make a sale, I don’t hand over a prescription for

You have to be like a chameleon. You have to blend in to every situation. You have doctors who are big sports fans; you have doctors who could care less about any sport…You have to blend yourself to be able to have conversations and communicate with all kinds of different people.

the doctor to give to a patient. I have to count on them to write it after I’m gone. So you don’t get the satisfaction of making that sale every day like you would if you was a regular salesperson, if you were selling a product that you carried with you. You have to monitor that data later on. You don’t reap your crop right there, you have to wait until later to see how it turned out.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

With most pharmaceutical companies you get a salary and you also get paid commission on your drugs that you sell. So, if you sell 160 percent of one product, you get paid on 60 percent over that quota. The more you sell the more you make, so the harder you work, the more money you make. You also get a company car, you get free gas, you get to provide a lot of meals for offices and doctors and you also get to eat with them for free. You get free car insurance, great benefits, stock options. I would say there’s $20,000 added onto your salary that you don’t see that you get in just perks, that come with the job.

How much money do you make?

In a given year, as a pharmaceutical rep, you can’t really say how much you make because you could make anywhere between $70,000 and $100,000 or you could make less. If you don’t make your sales, you don’t make as much. But usually a base salary for a pharmaceutical sales rep with minimal experience, you’ll start out

I don’t have a boss walking down a hallway every hour to check on me and make sure I’m doing my work. They trust you with millions of dollars worth of samples. They give you a car. They trust you with a car and they trust you with a company expense account. ‘Freedom’, is probably the one word to say what I like the best about it.

about $50,000 a year base salary. If you have a base salary of $50,000, you could make $20,000 in bonuses if you did real well. And that’s not counting the $20,000 worth of stuff that you get as far as your cell phone paid, your car’s paid for, your car insurance is paid for and your gas is paid for. You can count that as about $20,000 more as well a year.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

You have to have a good personality. You have to be able to deal with all different kinds of people. You have to have a four-year Bachelor’s Degree, so you must go to college. You must get a degree. And most of these companies are looking for people who are leaders and people who are very competitive. So, you have to be able to show that, and you have to be able to…You have to be like a chameleon. You have to blend in to every situation. You have doctors who are big sports fans; you have doctors who could care less about any sport. They’ve never played a sport, they’re more into science and more into research and stuff. You have to blend yourself to be able to have conversations and communicate with all kinds of different kinds of people.

What is most challenging about what you do?

A lot of times, the most challenging is just getting access to doctors. You’ll go in some clinics where they see 15 or 20 reps a day. You have to stand out. You have to do something different and a lot of times all they want to do is come up and sign your piece of paper to get your samples and then they’re out. They’re very busy. So, getting time with those doctors, I would say, would be one of the hardest things and most challenging. And the other thing is a lot of times your product is very expensive and you have to get them to buy it and show your product is worth it.

What is most rewarding?

I would say the most rewarding to me is just being able to be out on my own. I don’t have a boss walking down a hallway every hour to check on me and make sure I’m doing my work. They trust you with millions of dollars worth of samples. They give you a car. They trust you with a company expense account. I really like that.  ‘Freedom’, is probably the one word to say what I like the best about it.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

I would say if you’re a college student, you need to be very involved. You need to be involved in every club that you can and hold positions in that club to where you can show that you have improved something or you have accomplished something because that’s what this company’s about. I mean, most pharmaceutical companies, they want you to improve your territory, so if one year you sold 110 percent, the next year, they’re going to expect you to sell more. So you have to be able to prove that you’re competitive and that you want to win and that you want to do better. Any leadership stuff that you’ve been involved with or if you’ve had success in another sales job, you need to be able to prove that, and show it you did it and how you’re going to do it with any other company.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

I think a lot of people, as far as when you walk into an office, whether it’s a patient or it’s a secretary or if it’s a doctor, they just think you’re there to deliver samples. A lot of times pharmaceutical reps are dressed very nice, we drive nice vehicles and they think that you just make a bundle of money and you don’t do any work, when it is really extremely hard. It’s an extremely hard job and a lot of pressure on you and what you do is work. You’re offering a product and a lot of times, people don’t believe in it and you have to make them believe in that product because if your product wasn’t superior to most other products, it wouldn’t be out here. It wouldn’t be being used. I would say just learning the science background and then just the misconception is that you don’t do anything when you really do work very hard.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

I think that they should just know that it’s not an easy job. It’s not easy like a lot of people think. It is hard and like I said before, there’s a lot of pressure. And it’s very, very hard to get into. Very seldom does a person come out of college and get a pharmaceutical sales job. You have to have something to offer because these companies, the pharmaceutical companies are the most applied to companies in the United States right now. More people want to work in pharmaceuticals than any other, you know. I mean, my company actually gets more applications per day than Wal-Mart. That’s huge, so it’s very competitive to get into and if you’re going to try to get into it, don’t get discouraged if you get turned down for a while. It took me over a year to get hired.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a commerical painter.

What does your work entail?

I started out doing everything, doing all the painting, getting the estimates, getting the estimate turned in, getting all the paint, have it delivered to the job site, then actually do the work, finish and make sure the client is happy, then get your payment, deposit that and record all this process all while hoping that in the middle of that job you are booking other jobs. So that got to be a challenge which is where having the guys helped out because now basically all I do is go out and do the estimating and the invoicing and then just quality check. So, rather than eight hours of my day spent actually doing the labor, I’m going around trying to continue the booking process and the invoicing and all that work.

How did you get started?

I was in school to get my athletic training degree and we moved into a place and we asked the landlord if we could get a decreased rent to paint it and she said ‘ok’. The landlord had someone she hired to paint the other side of the duplex and paid them $1200 and ours equated to $300 bucks, and our side looked better and so she said ‘well, there are plenty of people that have property that could use this’. So me and my friend that I lived with at the time came up with a name and put together some paint buckets for the logo and put out flyers all over town at hardware stores and that was in 2000, so seven years later here we are. For awhile I did it only part time. I started getting more calls for the painting thing and I was like ‘I’m going to give this a try’, because I’d get my pay check from my other jobs and I’d be like, ‘I still need more money’, and so I would plan on the paint jobs to make that happen and I was like, ‘maybe I can just turn that into something’. And it was difficult in the beginning but that was two and a half years ago now. So I went full time self employed and now I’ve had a crew of guys for over a year and I’ve been keeping them busy enough to keep them around.

What do you like about what you do?

It’s kind of a double edged sword. I love it and sometimes it’s challenging at the same time. I can basically write my own schedule. If I don’t want to get up in the morning, I don’t have to get up in the morning but then later in the day I’m just thinking about what I could have gotten done if I had gotten up in the morning. So, I love that that aspect of it, but at the same time if you are not disciplined about it that can be your downfall.

What do you dislike?

The inconsistency, it’s not like a regular job where you show up and you know you are going to get that money and you know you are going to have that money to count on. I can be in the middle of a job that’s going to end at the end of this week and I haven’t gotten any calls and I don’t know where the next job is going to come from. So that’s my biggest, the thing I hate the most is just not having any idea where the next job is going to come from.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

You walk in and you just got to figure out ‘how much is my time worth on this?’, ‘Is it my time or is it my guys’ time?’ ‘Alright, I have to pay my guys this much and I still need to make some money off of this.’ So planning those things out and then coming as close to possible as measuring square feet for paint costs. Another thing that a lot of people don’t take into consideration is the taxes. You try to figure out those numbers so that you do have a profit margin, otherwise it will get eaten by those little figures that don’t get taken into consideration very often. Then you put all those things together on a QuickBooks estimate form and send it to the customer and hope that you are able to fit all of that into their preconceived budget that they have in their head.

How much money do you make?

I had a really,in my opinion, a good year. It was our first full year of the painting company, with two guys only working six months of the year. We grossed $110,000. I ended up netting close to $50,000 from my first full January to December year of self employment, that’s pretty exciting.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

I don’t think a degree is necessary. But having a business education definitely would help. I mean you’ve got to know accounting, you’ve got to know how to set up the corporation right as far as an LLC, then you get to learn how to save money on taxes and make sure you are fileing properly so that you are not getting taxed the most possible. Then there is the invoicing and the management of customers. Then there is the advertising aspect of it, to make sure that you get your name out there enough to get more business and then there is the labor aspect of it that you might have to be doing until you get to the point where you don’t have to do it. It can be done, which I’m proof of the first three or four or five years I was doing it, while I was in college, but, then if you want to keep growing and reach different levels you’ve got to manage it on a higher level. And there is always the risk of getting sued or injured. If you get injured you’re screwed because you are your source of income, there’s not disability you can take or if you screw up somebody’s house on accident you could get sued. So, there are always those concerns that a lot of people just forget about.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Keeping your crew motivated and keeping them paid, and worrying about where the next job is coming from. You can’t think so selfishly about how am I going to get paid, and how am I going to be able to afford to live and then have some fun at the same time, because you’ve got guys that are depending upon you. One of the my guys has a wife and two kids. So I have got to provide for them and keep them happy first otherwise I ‘m not going to be able to get the work completed, especially considering that it’s been a year since I have actually done a lot of the work and you get rusty after that length of time. So just managing all those aspects of it and then managing the other people is the challenging part.

What is most rewarding?

At the end of the job, seeing the guys happy that they are getting their paycheck and enjoying the work that they do. And what’s amazed me the most, and I guess I just never thought of this because of my ambitions as far as wanting to own a company, but there’s people that just want to work. So that parts probably the most rewarding. I had one guy with two kids and a wife and another guy with three kids and a wife and I’m supplying them with solid work. It’s a pleasure to watch them enjoy doing the work for you. And being able to communicate with them and kind of empower them to a certain degree that they feel that they have some control as far as decisions are made and things like that.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

It’s tricky. I’m actually just now getting to the point where I am prepared to do things the right way. And I say the right way in that, the majority of the people who start up a business, ideally have a business plan, ideally they have capital and then put all those things together and put themselves on the market. If anything I had negative capital because I was in college and and trying to get to this point. As a result I was kind of piecemealing things together, you know, ‘oh I have an extra $500, we’ll call that marketing money and make some business cards’, so I’ve just been piecemealing all that together. The advice would be, in a perfect world, be disciplined about putting together a structured business plan and having goals, even if they are small goals, and say, ‘I am going to make sure I get three jobs this month’. If you get more than that, then that’s good. You’ll beat your goal and now you can have something to grow from. But it can be done without that.

How much time off do you get/take?

I like to think there a controlled out of control situation where sometimes you feel like, ‘I’m taking a lot of time off’ but then again there are time’s when I am working at two o’clock in the morning because that’s when I am feeling the most motivated. I am not always that person who can get up at eight o’clock in the morning and go ‘okay, it’s time to get work done’. Sometimes it is one o’clock in the morning and there are some creative juices flowing.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

That I don’t work. People always say he is “working”, you know. But there is a mind draining process to all these things. I’m in one of the few painting companies that have a website, and website development is probably one of the most mind draining things that I do. It’s lot’s of little things and then, ‘how can I plan for tomorrow to make it the most productive?’. So there is a lot of seemingly idle time that’s not idle.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

I don’t just want the painting company. I have an idea box full of other things from at least a half dozen or more inventions that I would like to pursue as well as other business ideas. Someone could argue that I have already spread myself thin, I’m trying to make sure I don’t and focus on what I’ve got going on right now and keep that growing.