This Venezuelan arrived in the country in 2018, brought by Fermetal, a company specializing in plumbing with over 40 years in the international market. He came with the responsibility of managing one of the company's sales coordination roles.
SANTO DOMINGO – Being a salesperson in a hardware store might seem as simple and basic as selling the products. However, it requires being a jack-of-all-trades and being willing to constantly change your role. Sometimes you're an engineer, other times a painter, electrician, plumber, architect, and all the other roles that the hardware store shelves offer.
“People underestimate the work of sales in hardware stores, they think it is very basic, but it requires a lot of discipline and there is an implicit technicality that the sales professional must know. You work with many facets and branches of daily life and you have to have knowledge of it to answer the doubts of the customers,” says Rodolfo Carrera, dedicated to this field for 25 years.
Carrera has been passionate about his job since he started, and maintains that being a hardware store salesman means being informed about what you sell and its uses. He believes this makes the work very interesting, in addition to putting you in contact with different people in different places every day. “There’s no time to get bored,” he says in an interview with the online newspaper El Inmobiliario.
This Venezuelan arrived in the country in 2018, brought by Fermetal, a company specializing in plumbing with over 40 years of experience. He came with the task of managing one of the company's sales coordination roles.
For this hardworking man, there are no set hours that can stop him. His company coined the phrase "if there are clients, we work," which means they can arrive at six, the established time, or they can work until nine at night and still be on the road, in addition to the extra hours of administrative work and paperwork that need to be processed after visiting clients.
He employs nine salespeople and two assistants who help him as merchandisers. His geographic reach extends throughout the northern region, including the Cibao and the northwest; as well as the tourist destinations of Puerto Plata and Samaná; and also the eastern part of the country.
Like any job, being a hardware store salesperson has its challenges, although the degree depends on the salesperson's consistency, service, and preparation, says Carrera, who explains that the company he represents provides continuous training to sales staff to enable them to achieve goals and compete in the market.
“I love what I do. Since I started in the world of sales, I fell in love with my job because it is a fascinating world. Not only is it the best-paid job in the world, but every day it presents new challenges, which makes it interesting,” she points out.
Born in Caracas, Venezuela, and a business administrator by profession, Rodolfo has been married for about three decades and has two children with his wife. He only worked as an administrator for five years before becoming a hardware store salesman. He says he misses the cold weather in the area where he lived and, most of all, his family.
When he cites the values that underpin his practice, he mentions honesty, ethics, perseverance, discipline, keeping up with innovation, teamwork, and what he considers fundamental: trust in God.
“One of the keys to making a sale is being able to identify the customer's need and see how we can satisfy it with the products we offer. We must remember that selling is more than just offering a product; it's about human relationships, so we must know how to listen to the customer in order to help them,” he emphasizes.
He describes Dominicans as hardworking, supportive of his work as foreigners, and welcoming. He concludes his remarks about successful salespeople by saying they must be ambitious, eager to improve, and not content with simply meeting their sales quota, but rather strive to exceed expectations. “I always tell them that their budget isn't the ceiling, but the floor, and that the sky's the limit.”
