I will organize this cons list into a few sections, and will do my best to remain as UN-biased as possible.
Everything I will speak on is applicable only to the Market Development Representative position itself and is not indicative of any other sales position. Furthermore the operational aspects are only applicable to the CO Springs location in Colorado, and the region it is operating in.
Responsibilities, Requirements and Expectations.
The Position of Market Development Representative or MDR, has dramatically changed from when it was first conceived not so many years ago. In sharp contrast to the simple title of the Outside Sales Position (Facilities and Uniform Sales) which has seen minimal increases to the required number, the MDR position has seen sharp increases in it's quarterly and annual goals.
President's Club Requirements
You are heavily encouraged to get to PC (President's Club) by the years end to be considered an exceptional rep, and PC nets you a nice little vacation along with some company stocks as well. The number is closely monitored and to ensure that only 5% of all reps nationwide are able to go and is increased sometimes yearly if more than this number attain it. (You are also not likely to be considered for a promotion unless you go to PC a few times as well.) The Goal is very high, and very lofty and raises every single year. You are expected to compete with markets in California and Nevada where prices are generally expected to be higher and opportunities are much more abundant. This is not measured, modified, handicapped or accounted for in anyway. A new requirement released this year requires 100 current customer account renewals which makes things even more difficult due to the terrible retention this region currently suffers from, I will discuss this in the Service Agreement Renewals and Operation Section.
Commission and Pay Structure
In addition to the grind of hitting the PC number required (This year is 24,500 in 2020), you must also deal with the convoluted and confusing pay structure, along with aggressive monthly audits that are likewise confusing in there application, I will discuss them briefly below. In addition to this, the omission structure of the MDR changes yearly and is seemingly based upon whatever the company wants you to sell at that moment in time. Last Year we were given 5:1 Multipliers on everything Sold with the exception of Linen and Paper (Which is always 1:1), This year, corporate raised the Uniform Multiplier to 6:1, but dropped everything else down a notch to 4:1. I see this as a con because these adjustments are the lowest multipliers we have seen yet in sum total. In contrast the Outside Sales Positions have had there multipliers and incentives increased yearly, with the largest increase being to now have the capability to make money at a 9:1 ratio on selling Uniform Insurance. They stripped the MDR position the ability to sell Insurance at the same time without explanation.(It was later reintroduced at a 1:1 ratio requiring additionally a 60 month term agreement as mandatory to be paid) To sum all of this up, your multipliers are decreased significantly on any sale with a Service Agreement that is 48 months or fewer (4 years or fewer) in term and further reduced further down to 1:1 if the account is Nationally owned.
Monthly Audits
Your omissions are audited monthly under the pretense that the product you sold bills out for 4 weeks. If an Delivery Driver (SSR) has to credit the product for one week due to a shortage you will completely be denied the sale 4 months later. Other parts of the audit are completely unexplained, such as additional uniforms to current customer. If that same customer stops any other uniform on the account, not pertaining to your sell, but maybe an employee was let go and his uniforms were returned, you will be docked upwards of 60% of the total sell for a 'volume' decrease, that had nothing to do with the original
Bonus Potential
This is the hardest section of all to write for me personally, and most certainly the toughest to be unbiased on, so please bear with me as I attempt to list the facts despite my feelings about them.
You have the potential to bonus at the following ratios once per quarter,
1:1 About what you will get payed if you exceed your quarterly goal.
1:5:1
2:1 – Middle Tier Payout
4:1
5:1 Highest payout Tier
Here's the kicker though, you must account for only 'eligible volume' sold. You can sell upwards of 4500+ per quarter to achieve your summit club number, and totally fall flat of a bonus by having most of that volume disqualified. You will receive no credit for linen products and paper has a an annual hardliner that accounts for maybe 5% of your total allowable number.
Worst yet, and this is probably the most corrupt, twisted and disgusting part of it all, is that if you work your butt-off for a large customer like say, a hospital and sell 2 quarters worth of volume all by yourself, your pay will be capped 40% for the year, and every bit of whatever else you sold will go to a Major Account Manager you've never even spoken to. MD's are encouraged to work with there Major Account Managers, and were told in the past that MA's will be there key to PC, this year however Md Rs have been capped at $2000 per MAM and most the Mams will never actually sell anything for you. Normally you'll sell the account, the MAM will flag the account as theirs automatically diminishing your omissions and take 60% of the pay and volume for themselves without even communicating with you. My associate who also shares my roll found out when his bonus tiers dropped from 5:1 down to 2:1 because a MAM he had never even met flagged the account as sold. This is incontestable as well
Finally this company promises uncapped omissions, but will absolutely cap you at $5000 on any one account, and $2000 in bonus eligibility on any major account. You will literally make no money, and receive no credit towards any bonus or omission check. The one silver lining is that you will continue to receive volume credit towards P.C..
Service Agreement Renewals
The latest hat they've asked us to wear recently comes in the form a new stipulation to achieve PC, that being the requirement of attaining 100, 60-Month+ Service Renewals (or contracts with an out) in addition to the already lofty monetary goal. It makes sense that they would do this as many locations in our region alone (California, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada) were already suffering from a low retention rate even before the pandemic, which has only exacerbated the issue. In an announcement made by the SVP of service, Md Rs were asked to work with Service Managers in an aggressive campaign to attain a maximum amount of renewals in the shortest amount of time. The most Topsy turnover part of all of it is that MD's don't report or work for service, but were being required to take part in the campaign. The problem lies with that fact that most Md Rs aren't going to President's Club (5% always) thus this specific requirement doesn't apply to them but they are still pushed to be a part of renewing accounts regardless. I will cover this more in the next section.
OPERATIONS
This section mostly pertain to my specific region (Mountain Group, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, California, New Mexico) and my specific location LOC 562, when noted.
Currently in the above listed region, the Mountain Region as it's deemed, we are suffering adversely from poor customer retention on the operations side, but doing very well on the sales side. The problem as myself, and most of my peers see it is that service is very poor for the high price that Cintas asks for. I can't tell you how many accounts I've visited in a week, located cities apart on different routes all have the same complaints. These are all throughout my territory of CO Springs, Pueblo, La Junta, Trinidad, Ramon, Buchanan Vista, Saliva and Canon City, and concern the distribution of products from Denver, Greeley and sometimes further to LOC562 on Co Springs. These are some of the objections to selling concerning bad service that I walk into on a weekly basis.
Uniforms are consistently lost, delivered and sometimes don't show up at all, with little to no communication about a solution for weeks to months.
Service Managers rarely visit the accounts that have issues, most customers have no idea who there account manager is. Service managers do not answer there phones, and rarely answer emails.
Price increases aren't communicated, and sometimes there are multiple in a year.
New product launches are always mismanaged. Sales is encouraged to massively over-promote and push customers on a new product, but that new product is consistently in short supply or severely back ordered leading to massive credits and service issues.
These issues have gone on for years now. I state this to warn anyone interested in this position that once you sell a product, the service team will often fail to maintain that service via the avenues above. Since you are limited to almost exclusively inside sales, you will need to put our fires all over the the place to ensure you can continue to sell. The larger the customer, the larger the mismanagement in almost every case. There isn't a solution in site at the moment nor has there been in my tenure here. I've personally watched large customers just walk away with the only attempt made to save them being made as after both feet were out the door. Reactive and consistently not proactive seems to the module at Cintas.
To conclude, please please please read all of that one more time, and deeply consider a move to Cintas at this location, or in this region. I am currently looking for another job being at the end of my sanity rope here. I made nearly 100k my second year in this job but you couldn't pay me any amount of money to put up with the constant problems, political agenda and inefficiencies that Cintas Uniform Rental in Colorado Springs currently has, and consistently undermines your attempts to be successful.
