Vantaggi
As an outside sales rep/territory manager, you receive a competitive base salary + commission. You walk into an existing book of business, as GranQuartz has a large customer database, so it is up to you to maintain and grow existing customers while earning new business. You receive a company vehicle and gas card, good medical, dental, vision. The company has first in class products within the industry, large extensive catalog. You are able to sell both daily consumables and capital equipment, so you get experience in both long sales cycle and short quick sales. You get a lot of face time with customers and are able to build solid relationships. You get to travel within your territory to see your clients, travel expenses can be submitted weekly and reimbursed. You can absolutely earn six figures if you work your territory, call on your customer's regularly, and become a partner who finds solutions to the customer's problems/issues. Opportunities to travel to industry trade shows. There is opportunity to move up for those who work hard. Plenty of branch managers and outside sales reps started in other areas of the company. I have seen people go from warehouse, to customer service, to inside sales. From there folks have moved to branch managers, product managers, and outside sales/territory managers.
Svantaggi
Training is insufficient for new hires. There is sadly a lack of structured, standard training format for new sales reps hired from outside of the company. Those guys can definitely struggle at first. I've noticed similar situations for people coming into customer service, inside sales, and accounting. Marketing is virtually non-existing. As a company, GranQuartz is VERY FAR behind it's competitors when it comes to social media and other marketing initiatives. The competition always seems to have their company branded swag to give to customers, have a solid presence on social media, and have user friendly websites. GranQuartz website has barely functioned for the last several years. Unlike other sales positions, there is not much in the way of competitions that result in additional incentives, such as sponsored trips for top performers, or lucrative end of year bonuses for exceeding sales goals as a top performer, etc.