Pros
Flexibility, benefits, getting to see different parts of the area while you travel for outside markets.
Cons
Being required to sell obsolete products or products that are absolutely not of the highest quality. Fulfillment of products is a nightmare, focus is less on selling and more on attaining lofty goals that about 3% of the sales force actually attains. In the old days when print was the primary source of leads for our clients, this was a fantastic job. The pay was great and it was really fun. As they have reduced our commissions year over year, I have watched my pay decline along with the sense of joy I once had. My role consists of putting out fires I never created and building websites. Last time I checked I was a sales person, not a web designer. I have absolutely come to hate calling into customer service- it's ludicrous! My average call time to fix an issue is over 1 hour. I can't imagine what my client's experiences are. Because so many of my clients know me as their Yellowbook rep, I hold almost no credibility in the digital marketing world. Most of my clients have had a different rep every year, so there's no real "buy in" for them to do business with me- no actual relationship. My pay and ability to keep my job is based on selling digital products, so you can imagine how demoralizing it is to walk in the door to help people be found on Google, only to be told "we don't want the phone book any more!'. Their online reviews are terrible so they have asked the sales force to come to their rescue by soliciting our clients to write great reviews about us online. That initiative has been a flop because people don't think we are doing a good job as a company! If people wanted to write a positive review, it would be about me, not hibu. I think people only do business with me because they like me or they feel like they don't have a choice. In other words, they are not buying from me because they think it's a good marketing investment. I think this company is setting itself up to be sold and they don't care at all about their reps. All they care about is paying off their massive debt by selling yellow pages and very, very bad websites.
