Pros
Possibility of samples depending on manager. Incentives can be large but have to have the proper route and territory to take advantage of hitting the incentive requirements.
Cons
Outdated and extremely ancient industry operations. As a sales representative you are responsible for every single account that is in your designated territory, even clients that net you less than 5% of your check for the year. You are required to service and assist small accounts (convenience stores, gas stations, pharmacy stores) without regard to your larger clients where your time could better be spent servicing and selling to. It is not a clean position/job/career by any means, expect to be treated by your clients as a cheap labor piece of crap. Do not expect any professional return from them, its retail you're just "another vendor" and your clients could care less about you and your well being. Expectations from upper management are very linear, hit only your designated goals each month and you'll shine. Making constant and complete progression in your market not necessarily tied into your monthly goals and you will be regarded as unmotivated and lazy. Upper management cares only about the capacity to hit their goals, not whats best for your market, your paycheck, and your clients. Go figure, their bonuses are tied to it. Regardless if your market can support the goals and product mix that you represent, it makes it extremely difficult to sell products that you can't be confident in in performance of your market. Thus leading to asking for favors continually on a day to day basis, without using much capacity to actually sell. It is very much a posse of people (management) that believes they know more about business practices than they actually do (only being told from above them exactly what needs to be done, little to no growth thinking and true organic ideas). This is also proven upon seeing the client base you serve, retail managers and buyers with little/no education. Being treated as a lesser person because you represent a distributor in the retail market, your just another daily pain in the butt to deal with. Average workdays can be anywhere from 12-16 hours, and your expected to work tastings, sampling products on top of that with no compensation for your extra time spent. Prepare to be under compensated on vehicle expenses, with a laughable car allowance that you don't truly see in your reflected pay. And lets not forget the additional expenses you'll incur for your shoes/clothes that get trashed for moving and handling pallets of wine day in/out for 65-70 hours a week, plus additional time spent and expected from management and clients for account service on weekends and holidays. Time-off is laughable. Its retail so remember, your days off even if they're national holidays barely exist, just the day itself, any additional time will never be approved by management. Expecting to enjoy your family time and vacation time on any requested days off is a joke, expect phone calls from your clients whining about not being serviced and needing somebody to cry to till you make a call requesting your manager to hopefully cover your route. Sadly, ridiculous to be considered a professional job and organization. You are nothing more than a glorified merchandiser, regardless of how glamorous the position sounds because your selling wine/liquor. Any monkey can do the job.