Pros
Cobalt is well positioned in the automotive marketplace due relationships with most of the major OEMs. The company is well recognized in the marketplace as a leader of web solutions for automotive dealers. The starting pay was very competitive, the benefits package more than acceptable, and the balance between work and family is important to senior management. They provide you with many of the tools needed to be successful, including laptop, miles reimbursement, marketing collateral, and access to product management. In Seattle, the culture and unity appears to be positive and team building is very important to senior management. There are worse places to work.
Cons
The company earns the majority of its revenue from OEM contracts, therefore diminishing the value placed on outsides salespeople. As a result, Account Executives are expected to produce immediately, or they will be fired and replaced. At the end of 2008, The Cobalt Group signed a major contract with GM, providing web-sites, paid-search, and procare services for all GM certified internet dealers in the United States. This contract caused a major backlog for the order fulfillment group and took websites and procare services away from the outside sales force, and was replaced with two products: paid search and OnStation email marketing. In my territory I had zero OnStation customers and two paid search dealers, therefore turning the job into a business development position. I was given two months to get to quota, and was fired despite being at 80%.