Steadily getting worse - OSR bei Fastenal: Mitarbeiterbewertung

I could literally write a book on the cons of this company. In fact, I've kind of already started one to have everything ready for my exit interview. First, the pay is the worst in the industry. You used to make 2% commission on existing sales and 6% commission on growth. You were expected to maintain 55% margin, which with accounts like mine (national accounts, which pricing is set by corporate) that run with margins on most of the things that we sell them from 14% - 30% it does nothing but bring down your pay. They recently changed the pay structure for us. We now make 1% and 4% commission. After being told our commission was being reduced I was told, "Don't worry, you'll actually make more money!" Now were only expected to maintain 50% margin. Sounds better as far as that goes. Except mysteriously my average margin went from the mid 50s before the change to the mid 40s after we only have to maintain 50% margin. They always find a way to take money away from you. You have one way to make commission. Sell stuff. However, there are multiple ways for them to take your commission away from you. For example, if you sell an item at less than 20% margin, you do not get paid for that sale. If the customer doesn't pay their invoice after 90 days, you lose half the commission for that invoice. If they don't pay it after 120 days you lose the other half of the commission for that invoice. (You make no money on that sale in the long run). If you sell a capital good, you get virtually no commission on that sale either. I sold $3,000 worth of items last month that were either capital goods or sold at less than 20% margin (due to it being sold to a national account that I can't control pricing on). That's $3,000 that I sold but didn't get paid for. The company is making money while the ones actually doing the selling are getting beat up. Last week there was a conference call to the GMs about a new system going into effect. Our store has two outside sales reps. After the new system goes into effect, we will only have one. The other person will just be there to go refill bolt bins and vending machines. We signed up for a sales job, not to be delivery people. That's another con. Its not truly a sales job. That's something you only find out AFTER you've been doing it a while. It starts off as such, but as you build your accounts, you spend more time delivering to them, stocking bolt bins and filling vending machines than you do selling. You also have to do collections on your accounts. The company wants you to be the sole contact for the customer. For the sales rep. it's extremely difficult to go to a customer and try to sell them something, and then say, oh, by the way, when are you going to pay us? You also have to be a purchaser. You have to source and buy products for your customers from the vendors. Sales, deliveries, collections, purchasing, the list goes on. Yet, you get paid so low while you do so much working 50 hours a week. When you start training you are at 40 hours a week with a base salary. When you become outside sales, your hours jump to 50, but your base pay doesn't go up. So, you're basically taking a pay cut. You're expected to make it up in commission, but as I've outlined above, that's not easy. When I first started, about my 3rd month selling I did $26,000 in sales. A year later I did $56,000 in sales. My paycheck was actually better with the $26,000 in sales than in was when I sold $56,000. I don't know what world that makes sense in, but it doesn't in mine. It seems to me that if you sell more you should make more. These aree the reasons why you see so many people leave after their first year. In 12 months I sold $600,000 worth of product. I made a little under $42,000. If I had done that at a local competitor I would have made $72,000. The competitor has a base salary of $1,500 less per month. However, they make 10% commission on every sale, every time. They don't take a dime away from you. You make a sale, you earn the money, period.