Pros
M-F position (sometimes weekends are required if there is a customer event)* Quarterly commissions can be pretty consistent depending on the location *if you get to attend, customer events can be fun. If you are a female handling an account there is a 80% chance you will not be invited to go.
Cons
Management is going to be the reason you leave or stay with the company. Every plant is different- from what they do or do not treat and the items they distribute. If you have a GM and a Sales Manager who want to see you grow and develop with the company then you will go far. Unfortunately, that is not the case in a lot of locations. There are managers who have the ability to make connections with customers-- but they simply cannot manage the people underneath them. They allow issues, that have been brought up to them, to fester in the office. I have also seen how the explode (cursing at employees) in front of the entire bullpen of sales employees. On quartlery commissions-- it's pooled and capped at a max payout of 7500. New employees that were hired into the company (at my previously plant) were never informed of this. I know of 5 employees (inside and outside sales) who were not informed of this prior to accepting employement. It wasn't until after starting that they learned of the capped commission. The pooled and capped commision (everyone gets the same payout regardless of your numbers-inside and outside reps) does not motivate people to sell once the max payout is hit. I would see how employees would sell maybe 5000 board feet in a day and others would be at 150,000 board feet and that employee with so little sales knew they were getting the same payout as the top performer. Outside reps in this company- DO NOT SELL. They visit customers and maybe talk about product. Everything that gets quoted is sent to the inside sales team to deal with. Customer problems-- inside sales team. Installation question-- inside sales team. I have had outside sales rep email me and say "i need you to help this customer because I don't know enough about this product or how to quote it." When you bring it up to your sales manager the response is "outside sales has to lean on the inside team." Leaning and pushing off their responsibility is two different things.