I Hate Being A Pushover

[Juicy]

So at my job, there's a new employee. He's a GREAT salesperson, but also not very good at asking if a customer is already being helped !! We get paid hourly and commission and the numbers do show! So ever since he's been here his sales numbers have been , and mines have been . Yesterday I already had to tell him off about him helping out someone elses customer. I'm like its first come first serve, and he's like well if I brought out a shoe, then its my sale .

So combined from yesterday and today he's stolen three of my customers. I don't like confrontation so I just ignored it, but it did set me off in a very bad mood today and everyone noticed in, I'm usually the loudest hype salesperson and today was very quite in the store. But when I was going to come up to a customer (I KNEW he was being helped, but there was no one in the store and I was just going to start a conversation) he points out that's his customer ...I almost said, Don't worry I ASK if a customer is being helped unlike some people. But I didn't.

And the thing is I know he isn't going anywhere, even without stealing people's customer's he's really good. And he's numbers are extremely high especially since my manager thought it was going to be slow on Black Friday, so it was just her and him in the morning, and boooy was it busy! So he's looking like the best sale associate in the world right now.

When I don't work with him, my sales are good, but when he's there, I hardly meet my quota! I don't want it to be where I look at my schedule and look if he's going to be working on the same day for me to be like if it's going to be a good day or not. And Sundays are my good days, last Sunday he didn't work I made 1,178 in sales and went over my quota, today (we even have an extended black friday sale) I hardly made 300 in sales and my quota was 700. Ugh.

I don't want to keep confronting him about the same issues, because I'm scared of coming off like a bitch, everyone else seems to like him, but what else can I do?!

[FoxyWench]

perhaps talk to the manager?

[Doberluv]

It is highly unethical of him to do that. Isn't there some kind of written procedure for the sales people...some kind of policies about that? I agree. Talk to the manager and make it known that he's stealing your customers. I hope things change for you. That is really bad.

[Fran27]

I'd talk to your manager too... I'm guessing it will sound like a reasonable explanation about why your numbers are going down when he's working. That, and it's just really rude to the customers too IMO, I know I wouldn't want to shop in a place where it's obvious that people steal each other's customers.

[Barb04]

I agree that this should be brought to the attention of your manager. Your manager should know why your sales are low when this person is there.

[bubbatd]

This is one reason we didn't do " perks " for # of sales .

[eddieq]

I've worked in commissioned sales before (home electronics) and we always "took turns" and it was a firm understanding that you always asked if the customer had worked with a previous sales person. We usually took it so far that if a customer mentioned, "I was here the other night looking and I have some questions" we'd ask if they had worked with another associate and write it up for that person if the customer said there was someone else.

Talk to the manager about the rules of the road. Try to have specific examples rather than just saying, "He's taking my customers". The only way to not be a pushover is to push back. You also can't be the only person who is having this issue (unless he tried it with the others and they pushed back already).

Good luck!

[Renee750il]

What Eddie said. I had a co-worker at one place when I was in outside sales who would poach into my territory, then leave me stuck with the (unpaid) customer service work after the sale. I didn't even bother with her -- went right to the owner with the paperwork. She wasn't there much longer

[Juicy]

Thanks everyone!