to jump...or not

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hey guys,

So I was hired as a project manager for a local web development company and I’ve worked there now for a year. Recently the sales rep who brings in all of the projects was fired, and the boss suddenly took me aside and told me his plan.

He is going to hire two more project managers (for a development team of 4) and have them bring in and manage all of the business.

This was not in my job description, I detect that he has not really thought it through well, and if the new pm’s plus myself do not get projects then our dev team starves.

Luckily I have, a little before this, requested for part-time hours to take care of my mother, but I am still scared.

Should I just compartmentalize this job and see if it fail or not and if it feels like crap and is not what I want leave?

Financially I am fine-I could live without the job for a while-it’s just I wonder if I could make it tolerable and stable for at least half a year if I should stick around just to get experience and a little cash/flexibility.

2

I’d be pretty pissed. Mixing sales with project management is a bad idea - they are two completely different things. I don’t know why your boss thinks this would be a good idea.

What do you think he would say if you just told him the truth, that you’re not interested in sales, and it is not what you signed up for? Or do you think he values you enough to not heap you with these extra and unwanted duties?

3

Yeah I agree. It’s a small company, and all of the employees are 100% billable, so if they dont have projects to work on…they don’t get paid.

I did express how I do not feel this will work, and that I will participate in his experiment and try, but that I will quit if it looks dire. I did not hide my feelings when he asked.

The problem is that he does not like sales people. He thinks project managers can get into previous client accounts and get new business that way. In reality we are too small and I think they’re doomed.

4

hey guys, any other opinions? I really need some advice :frowning:

5

You & the first replier laid it out perfectly already.

Some thoughts:

  1. I run the dev shop for my firm. The PM lead runs his shop. The head of Sales runs his shop. The idea that any of us could do the other guy’s job is ludicrous.

Yes, a PM, or even a technical customer interface person like a business analyst could communicate with an existing customer and sometimes elicit some interest in changes / improvements to existing stuff and perhaps even whole new projects. But they won’t be able to take the customer’s musing to a closed deal.

And they sure as hell won’t be able to cold-call, chase opportunities, and all the other salesy stuff.

Sounds like the boss got the brilliant idea that he can make sales a billable activity by having you do it. Hint: the customers won’t take to that.

So now you’ll be doing non-billable work in addition to billable work. Hint: unless your day gets longer, billings will go down, not up.
2. My personal natural inclination is to consider sales & marketing to be an Evil on par with child slavery. OTOH, I understand we only succeed when our sales people do their job better than the other guy’s sales people do their job. Just like PM & Dev.

And so I’m damn gald we’ve got the best, they’re professionals at what they do, & they kick butt on the competition.

The fact Dev builds an utterly superior product helps :-), but nobody will buy something they’ve never heard of, nor will they buy anything until somebody puts the pen in their hand & stuffs the paper under their nose. Which takes skill, low cunning, and boatloads of unbillable man-hours.
3. Planning to get all your business from existing customers is planning to fail. Each of them will either shut down or drift away in the next few years.
Bottom line: You’re right that this is a slo-mo disaster in the making. Depending on how big the firm’s backlog is today & how long your typical projects are, this oughta last 6 months. Given that you want part time right now and are getting it, it sounds like near-term this fits your needs. What you are not going to find in today’s job market is another part-time PM position.

But now you need a new part-time job: locating your next job. Get those certs, fire up the personal networking, etc.

If you have a way to get a litle closer to your current customers (which is what the boss wants now), make that count. Lots of truly independent consultants (not temp agency “consultants” who are just 1099 laborers) got started by taking over one or more accounts they’d worked on in a prior job. And after your current employer folds, there’s no issue with any non-compete or IP agreements you’ve signed.

6

Here’s the deal. You work for a small company so you will be expected to put on many hats and perform many roles. I can’t stand people who are like “that’s not my job”. Your “job” is to try and make your company as successful as possible so you can get paid. If that means calling up clients and trying to generate new business, then that’s what you do. If you want a role that is rigidly defined, I suggest working for a large corporation.

The idea that you would just up and quit without another job lined up because you don’t like your new role seems a bit infantile to me. Quit and do what? Sit around the house on your ass and not get paid for 6 months or more until you find new work? Is that any worse than doing that sitting at work with nothing to do?

7

Thanks for the advice guys. MsSmith, if I do not bill to projects I do not get paid, so if the business model is dumb…it won’t matter if I’m sitting at home, finding something else, or in the office. I am fine with working to get business for the team-it’s just not realistic to expect a PM, with no experience in selling big software projects, to keep a team of developers employed. I guess I just do not want to face people with families and tell them that I do not have work for them.

I will likely stick it out, see how it goes, and keep my eyes open.

8

Oh, well if you aren’t getting paid then screw it.

Honestly, it does sound like a crap company. The business model sounds similar to what you would find in a lot of fly-by-night technology consulting firms. If I were interviewing there, I would be concerned about how they planned to maintain a pipeline of new projects. Not to mention the whole not getting paid unless you are billing thing. It seems crazy you are supposed to wait around like temp agency not getting paid hoping a new project will magically appear.

9

Do you like or want to work in sales? If so, give this a shot. Else start looking.

10

I worked at a company where the man in charge of our branch had a disagreement with the man in charge of the entire company. He left and took the salespeople with him, they were not replaced because the big boss didn’t think they were needed. By the time I left 4 months later (for un-related reasons) the company was half the size, and shrinking further. I hear it has stabilized at about a third of the the people as before it lost the salesforce.

The branch manager and the salespeople? They started a competing company and are still growing. Sales matters, and like it or not, technical people are great at providing the product, but are not so great at getting new sales.

11

yeah, I think I’ve decided to ride it out with the two big projects I have for next 4 months, and focus on my freelance/looking for something else. I know they’re doomed but it’s good experience at the moment.