Want to submit a question and be featured in our advice column? Click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).
‍

Dear Quota Team, 
‍

I’m new to “real” sales but I’ve been selling my whole life. I’ve had one hustle after another since high school, and I’ve always made more money than anybody my age. I went to college for a year before deciding it was a waste of time, but even then, I had an off-campus parking business and an alcohol delivery business while the other people in my class were doing work-study jobs or mowing lawns for minimum wage. 
‍

The point I’m making is that I know business pretty well even though I’m still young. It comes natural for me. The problem right now is that I’m doing sales at a company that doesn’t seem to understand business at all. They’re a manufacturing distributor, but their website looks like it’s from the 90s and they barely have any social media presence at all. The company’s been around for decades, and even though the son and daughter of the original founder run it now, they’re not doing all the obvious stuff that I’d be doing if I was running it. 
‍

The same thing goes for the sales team. The sales manager doesn’t want to try any of my ideas like focusing more on social selling, or sending videos to prospects. He shoots all my suggestions down and basically just tells me to focus on my job and not to worry about the higher-level strategy. But I know more than any of them about what’s gonna work these days, so it’s frustrating to not be treated like an equal. I get that older people don’t like change, but if it’s gonna make them more money, they should listen to good ideas, right? 
‍

Frustrated in New Jersey   
‍

---
‍

Dear Frustrated, 
‍

Someone at your company definitely deserves a raise. But it’s not you, it’s your sales manager, who should get paid extra for putting up with your nonsense. For someone who claims that business comes naturally to them, you don’t seem to know the first thing about it. The fact that you, someone working their first sales job, thinks you know more than the people running a decades-old business speaks to your lack of humility, but even more to your delusions of grandeur.
‍

While it’s true that companies can get stuck in their ways and might miss opportunities, there’s no law that says once you reach the age of forty, you have to defer all decision-making power to someone who’s under twenty-five. And a letter like yours could only have been written by someone who’s never truly paid their dues and never earned something through patience and hard work. 
‍

So here’s our advice to you: quit. Leave this place that obviously doesn’t value your brilliance. Then, take your skills and start your own company. That way, you can run it any way you want, and you won’t have to worry about any old people slowing you down. But there’s a problem you might run into -- you need money to start a company. And unless you have rich parents or can convince investors to give you the seed capital, there’s really only one way to raise that cash: stop bragging, stop complaining, pick up the phone, and do your job.